Her life is going to change for good, but gosh, how exciting!
EMMA RADUCANU’S life will change drastically after her historic triumph. Everywhere you go people will want your autograph, there’s more stares, more judgment. With social media these days it’s amped up 100 times. It’s about managing your time, making sure you’re keeping up with training. At least one element has been removed from her schedule — a month ago she was doing qualifying in Landisville, Pennsylvania in front of fewer than 100 people. Now she’ll probably never see qualifying ever again! Everywhere she goes, she’ll be a star. Before every match, she’s going to be introduced as ‘2021 US
Open champion Emma Raducanu’. And it’s so exciting. The first tournament I played after winning here in 1979 was in Atlanta and it was like oh my gosh, this is life-changing. The endorsements are going to come. She’s got a multicultural background, the way she’s piqued everybody’s interest and was adopted by the crowd in New York for her personality and fearlessness on court. The people around her have to help ensure her life doesn’t change too much and too fast. I hope that people don’t start leaping on ‘how many Grand Slams can she win?’ Let’s take a breath, pump the brakes. What she did was absolutely phenomenal, a magical run, but let’s not expect every single tournament she plays now to be exactly that way. She’s just 18, it’s all new to her. She may run through and win every tournament but if she doesn’t, give her time. Do I worry for her? No, I don’t, because she seems very grounded, very levelheaded. I saw her with her team in the cafe the other day and they seemed so relaxed, like they were having such a good time, having fun together. That’s the mentality Emma has to keep. Keep the fun. For her to come out of obscurity at Wimbledon, get to the fourth round there, but then be the qualifier here and go on to win 10 matches without dropping a set, it’s just an incredibly quick progression. Normally, you progress through levels. You win at the lower levels, win some titles and start to win some bigger events. You start pushing deeper into majors, getting to quarters, semis. It’s not all of a sudden going from qualifying to winning Grand Slams. There’s about 20 levels to go through, and I feel like Emma went through all 20 of them in the last three weeks. When I won here, I was here in New York on the following Monday and Tuesday doing the Today show and Good Morning America. All of a sudden, everybody wants you. Her agent Max Eisenbud is going to be very important now, he helped Maria Sharapova through it when she won Wimbledon at 17. The people around her are going to be crucial in making sure she stays level-headed and grounded. She has to keep her eye on the ball and keep winning tennis matches.