“We’ve seen others that kind of take a step back and say, ‘Oh, I’ve won a Slam now, I’ve made it. There’s sponsors coming in and I get treated like a princess wherever I go’,” Clijsters continued. “Just because you’re the No 1 player and have won Slams, doesn’t mean you should treat other people differently. I feel like Ash Barty did that amazingly, and I think Iga has that focus, too. a lot of respect for the other people around her.”
Raducanu herself has recently hit back at claims that her sponsorships are “distracting” her from tennis and causing her early losses. The 19-year-old said that the criticisms were “unfair” and revealed how little time the brand deals actually took away from her schedule.
that it is unfair, but it’s something that I have learnt to deal with more and become a bit more insensitive to the outside noise. At the end of the day I feel like my days [with sponsors] are pretty limited,” she said after her opening loss in Miami. “I’m not even doing crazy days. I’m doing three to four days every quarter [in total]so it’s really not that much. I’m doing these things, but I’m training hard, putting the hours in and, especially now, I feel like I just need to get more volume and more capacity. I am doing a lot and I’m spending a lot of time at the club.”