'What Do They Expect?': King Responds To Raducanu's 'Brutal' Tour Comments

Saturday, 01 July 2023 at 11:00

byBalasz Virag

Billie Jean King responded to Emma Raducanu's comments about the competitive nature of the WTA Tour by confirming that being a professional athlete is indeed very hard.

Emma Raducanu has had a rather eventful career despite it not being longer than a few years. The Brit emerged suddenly at Wimbledon winning a couple of matches and pushing her name out into the orbit of the wider tennis audience.

She became world famous by winning the US Open a couple of months later and it's been a whirlwind since then. Coaching changes, injuries, physical problems, and tremendous pressure have impacted Raducanu so far in her career. In a recent talk with the Sunday Times, she admitted that the WTA Tour is brutal.

Billie Jean King knows that very well as she dealt with all of that during her career when women's sports were even less respected than now. Mental health was a non-topic decades ago which only made it more challenging. She was asked about Raducanu's recent remarks and responded to them.

Being a pro-athlete is hard. What do they expect? It is going to be difficult, but you’ve chosen to be a professional athlete. With that goes certain things that you have to look at. It’s competitive. You have to ask for help if you need it. We [athletes] are used to stiff upper lip, be tough. No. On the court maybe, but off the court, you need help. Ask for what you want and need.

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While it's never been tougher to become a professional athlete due to the advances in several fields making things even more competitive, there are things that are easier. The Tour is very forthcoming with mental health as is society in general. Many players are also speaking about it more often. That was not the case in the past and King praised the WTA for stepping up.

The WTA has been fantastic with mental health for years, but people would say: ‘Why aren’t you doing anything?’ Of course we’re doing things. We have to keep it private. This is about private issues with each player. I used to talk to Kathleen Stroia, who’s the head of health services, ad nauseum [about] what’s going to happen in the future.

How do we make it better? How do we help with all this? We have psychologists. Believe me, since the ‘80s and ‘90s, the WTA has been on this. We have psychologists for whatever you need.