“It will make you so much stronger if you’ve had those low moments and you’ve overcome them” – Raducanu

The past 10 months have been challenging for Emma Raducanu, the 19-year-old Brit who stunned the tennis world with a fairytale run to the 2021 US Open title as a qualifier – a first in the history of tennis.

While Raducanu has become one of the most marketable athletes in the world with an endorsement portfolio that is second to none, the teenager has had a tough time adjusting to her first full season on the tour and the expectations that have heaped upon her after her US Open triumph.

Through it all, Raducanu has persevered and took on the criticism with a pinch of salt, reminding everyone how she is taking each tournament as a learning experience.

All that experience made Raducanu an ideal candidate to talk to students from Wolverley Secondary School in a video chat where she opened up about how her difficult experiences have shaped her to become a stronger person.

When asked if she ever wanted to give up, the world No 10 was honest enough to admit that she had thought about the same during the pandemic.

“Oh yeah, that’s a good question that. For sure, I’m not going to lie. I think that in the pandemic it was pretty difficult because circumstances were very challenging. And I wasn’t able to train for – I didn’t train for eight months. I’m just glad that I managed to kind of stay strong through that,” she said.

Raducanu told the students that she saw the good results that came after the pandemic as a payoff for her hard work and perseverance

“And I think that I was definitely rewarded after Covid with some great results and achievements just because of the dedication. And sometimes you can sort of think of it as like, when you feel like you’re really low, then you can almost take a bit of comfort that something good is going to come your way because it doesn’t last forever. No matter how down you might feel. It will make you so much stronger as a person too if you’ve had those low moments and you’ve overcome them, you’ll definitely feel a lot better about yourself later on.”

“Beating the boys and coming back when I was losing, that just brought me a lot of confidence” – Raducanu

Raducanu also told her young audience how she struggled to make friends as a child and then opened up how beating boys at tennis helped her gain confidence, which enabled her to become more comfortable and outgoing.

“You know how secondary school is,” she said. “All the kind of friendship groups are formed in like year seven, eight, nine, and they’re constantly changing in the early few years. So if you’re not there and you’re not going to some things or hanging out at lunch, or break, then you kind of get isolated and forgotten about.”

“I used to be really shy as a young girl and playing tennis and beating the boys and coming back when I was losing, that just brought me a lot of confidence. I can say that I’m definitely more comfortable and outgoing now than I was when I was younger, and I think tennis has brought me that.”

Raducanu, now ranked No 10 in the world, will begin her US Open title by playing the Citi Open in Washington, DC next week.

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