Emma Raducanu has claimed that female tennis players are often technically superior to their male counterparts, before going on to describe the prize money gap between the two tours as “huge” and unfair.
While the French Open, which starts in a week’s time, will grant equal sums to both sexes, this week’s Italian Open is more typical of the year-round calendar, paying £550,000 to its female champion and around £757,000 to its male one.
“A lot of women’s players are technically better,” Raducanu told The Times. “They rely on speed, agility and brain rather than brute strength. The prize money gap is huge on the ATP tour, which I don’t necessarily think is fair, but equally playing three sets in the slams is a lot better than the men’s five, which is brutal.”
Raducanu is expected to perform next week at the French Open qualifying event after narrowly missing out on direct entry to the main draw. She has taken almost four weeks away from competition after a busy sequence of six matches in 11 days, which she said had left her exhausted.
She continues to attract online criticism for her social-media output. Recent posts on Instagram include a photoshoot for Dior and a picture of her enjoying a glass of red wine a couple of days after a heavy first-round defeat at the Madrid Open.
But she said that the online trolls are missing out on the big picture. “There are those who see me doing a shoot or posing for a commercial and they don’t see the seven hours before that at the training centre, doing physio, gym, hitting balls,” she said. “But if on a rare evening I go to a premiere and I get photographed, that’s my downtime.”
It was recently revealed that Raducanu’s registered company, Harbour 6, posted profits of just under £10 million in 2023. As her prize money for the season came to a little shy of £200,000, it seems likely that the bulk of that income stemmed from her nine major sponsorship deals, which comprise British Airways, Porsche, Tiffany, Dior, Evian, Wilson, Nike, HSBC and Vodafone.
Her success, she said, had derived from her family’s strong work ethic. While admitting that Ian and Renee had been classic “pushy parents” during her junior tennis career, Raducanu said that she would not have it any other way. She mentioned knowing other players on the junior circuit who had “more lenient” parents but now no longer play tennis and said she is “grateful” for her parents’ approach and that she does not “regret any of their methods”.
Raducanu also added that her parents have changed as she has got older, saying: “They are so pushy. When I was younger more so. Now they are at a place where they tell me what they think is best, but they realise ultimately that the more they push the more I am going to resist. So they know the smartest way is to not try to enforce their opinions but make me think it is my idea. We are three very stubborn characters in the house.”