Rivard: Billion-dollar tennis star
Among the many headliners in the mix at the first of the two spring events on US soil was Emma Raducanu.
Not for long, but still.
Is she worth a billion dollars like former Romanian pro and businessman Ion Tiriac said, piggybacking on a tweet by British PR guru Mark Borkowski claiming she was the billion-dollar girl after her big win in NYC, or just a one-hit wonder?Or does her path lie somewhere in between?
Considering current circumstances and her undeniable talent, let’s say she’s in between. A gifted athlete who perhaps experienced too much, too fast.
She’s not alone. There are countless young athletes just like her who were prematurely labelled as the next big thing.
In California, Emma battled through her first clash and then lost in the next round to Petra Martic of Croatia. Serving for the match at 5-4, Raducanu lost the next three games and the set and was promptly sent packing.
There haven’t been any other miracles since her unexpected US Open triumph. Her questionable decision to split from her coach, a bout of COVID-19 and an injury definitely slowed the momentum, and those things are all part of the equation.
There’s also the reality that awaits any prodigy who suddenly emerges.
After winning 10 straight matches without dropping a single set at her very first Slam, things suddenly got real. The result? A 4–7 record.
Of the seven losses, only one was against a high-ranking player: No.13 Elena Rybakina. The average ranking of Raducanu’s other opponents was no.87. Her four wins were over players around no.90.
Nothing to write home about, as the saying goes.
The euphoria is gone but the money that rained down from a myriad of sponsors charmed by her athletic and advertising potential has not.
“Still trying to figure everything out, and everything is still very new and it’s going to take a while to really settle into it,” Emma recently said.
That reminds me of something the Québec government repeated at the start of the pandemic about building the airplane while flying the first wave.
In Romanian newspaper Pro Sport, Ion Tiriac openly criticized Raducanu for firing coach Andrew Richardson, who helped her find her way to her first major: “Why did she get rid of the coach who took her there?!”
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