Young British tennis star Emma Raducanu has become one of the world’s highest-paid female athletes despite a season plagued by injury and fitness issues.
The 20-year-old shot to stardom last year with her shock US Open win which catapulted her up the world rankings to a highest position of 10. The marketable teenager agreed endorsement deals with British Airways, Dior, Evian, HSBC, Porsche, Tiffany and Vodafone, joining Nike as sponsors.
According to Forbes, during her first full year on the WTA Tour, the British youngster earned £581,700 ($700,000) in prize money but off the court she earnt a staggering £14.96million ($18m). The £15.52m total takes the British star up to fourth in the 2022 world’s highest-paid female athlete list.
Despite earning a vast amount from endorsement deals this season, Raducanu said that it hasn't taken away from her time practicing on the court.
“Maybe you just see, on the news or on social media, me signing this or that deal and I feel like it’s quite misleading because I’m doing five, six hours a day [of training], I’m at the club for 12 hours a day,” Raducanu said earlier this year.
“But I throw out one post in the car on the way to practice and all of a sudden it’s ‘I don’t focus on tennis’. I think that it is unfair but it’s something I have learned to deal with and become a bit more insensitive to the outside noise.
“I feel like my days [with sponsors] are pretty limited. I’m not doing crazy days. I’m doing three, four days every quarter, so it’s really not that much.”
Six of the top seven highest-paid female athletes were tennis players, with Japanese sensation Naomi Osaka the top earner at £42.46m ($51.1).
Like Raducanu, it was a troubled year on the court for Osaka without a Grand Slam victory as she pocketed £910,000 ($1.1m) in prize money but £41.49m ($50m) in endorsements.
Serena Williams was the second highest-paid female athlete while freestyle skier Eileen Gu was third. Tennis world number one Iga Swiatek won both the French and US Open crowns winning £8.2m ($9.9m) in prize money but was only fifth on the list.