Emma Raducanu urged to ‘cut out the noise’ from critics by leading tennis voice
Emma Raducanu has already banished one of the biggest burdens holding her back, with the deflated expectations around her boosting her hopes of success in 2025.
That’s the verdict of Sky Sports Tennis lead presenter Gigi Salmon, as she backed the 2021 US Open champion to silence her doubters and return to winning ways.
Raducanu has enjoyed highs and lows in the opening weeks of this season, with a run to the third round of the Australian Open offering encouragement before she was thumped 6-1 6-0 by world No 2 Iga Swiatek.
First round defeats in her next three events did little to boost her confidence, but Salmon believes the 22-year-old Brit is already performing in a more productive environment as she is not being weighed down by unrealistic expectations.
Raducanu’s US Open win saw a glaring spotlight shining on Raducanu and Salmon believes the hype around her was not helping her development as a player.
“There is an expectation there and that will never change and everyone seems to have that with Emma, but the main thing for me is the expectations have changed in her mind,” Salmon told Tennis365 in an exclusive interview.
“It must have been so hard. She did everything backwards. Came from nowhere and all of a sudden, she was a Grand Slam champion.
“Everything was thrown at her from diamonds to cars and this is a young girl who was living at home with her parents when all this happened.
“It would have been easy to think this was all too easy, but she had never played on the tour and it was always going to take time to adjust to that.
“It’s tough. You need to learn what you need to put your body through and deal with the body breaking down, but I feel that having spoken to her, she has reset her mind.
“She knows what she has to do now and the expectations are never going to change. There are people and sections of the media that like to build people up and knock them down and I think he has to ignore that.”
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Salmon also hit out at Raducanu’s critics, who appear to have an unhealthy eagerness to criticise the youngster when she suffers an injury setback or a defeat on court.
The reality that Raducanu’s name still attracts interest in the media and draws hits to websites ensures she will continue to be a focus of attention, but Salmon suggests some of the negativity she attracts is unjustified.
“People are always interested in Raducanu and their comments are now always positive. She has to stay away from that and focus on what is important,” added Salmon.
“The changes she has made with Yutaka Nakamura coming in will really help her this year and she will hopefully have some consistency in her team when she adds a new coach.
“She is a little bit older now, she has come through a lot in her life, good and bad. Some people will never give her a break and the noise is always going to be there. Hopefully she finds a way to block it out.”
Raducanu has followed different rules since her dramatic breakthrough three-and-a-half years ago, but there is a sense of realism around what she is trying to achieve now and that can only help her ambitions over the course of this year.
The comments from Salmon echo the thoughts of Sky Sport Tennis analyst Noami Broady, who told this website that Raducanu’s critics are not tennis experts.
“People who have that attitude and say Emma got lucky when we won the US Open don’t understand tennis,” Broady told Tennis365. “You hear them say she is a one-Slam wonder and it was a fluke that she won the US Open.
“If you understand tennis, you will know that is not possible. You can’t come through qualifying, win seven matches without dropping a set and win a Grand Slam by luck.
“She has the level and she needs to get back there and it’s incredibly difficult not to look at those articles online and get dragged into the negativity.
“Hopefully the team around her will help with that and that may be why over the last year or two she has made that close circle much smaller. She needs that protection around her.”
“She is putting a lot of hard work off the court and I just love her hire of Yutaka Nakamura. He is such a lovely guy and they will fit incredibly well with their personalities. He is also one of the best in tennis at what he does.
“He will also give her a lot of support on how to manage her body because as we have seen with Jack Draper, he has achieved fantastic results when he has managed to do that.
“I feel it’s a similar story with Emma. She has the talent and she just needs her body to play ball and allow her to win the amount of matches she needs to in order to get back to the top of the rankings. I think it will come, but we just need to give it time.”
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