Emma Raducanu's financial disaster in 2025

For professional sportspeople, their earning potential is limited to a very short window. That's why it's key for them to maximize every endorsement deal and paycheck they can.

For those who make their living in solo sports, the pressure to maximize their earnings is even more intense, the latest example of this is British tennis star Emma Raducanu.

In August 2021, Raducanu arrived at the US Open qualifiers as a total unknown. Two weeks later, she shocked the world by winning the tournament and emerging as the new star of women's tennis.

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At just 18 years old, the British tennis player became an overnight sensation, quickly rising as one of the biggest stars in the WTA and one of the highest-paid athletes in the world.

Despite her lack of wins, Raducanu earned $13 million in 2024 (approximately £10.4 million or €12 million), Sportico reported, mostly from sponsorship deals, making her the seventh highest-paid athlete in the world this year.

To put it in perspective, Raducanu earned more from endorsements than Simone Biles, who brought in $10.4 million (around £8.3 million or €9.6 million).

Dr. Rob Wilson, a sports finance expert, warned that if Emma Raducanu "doesn't start winning games, if she doesn't go deep into tournaments, she is going to really struggle to renegotiate or renew any of those commercial endorsements and the career could be over pretty much in its infancy," Metro reported.

"Sometimes I wish I'd never won the US Open," the tennis player told The Sunday Times in June 2023. "I was very naïve. Over the last two years I've realised that the circuit and its surroundings are not pleasant and safe spaces," she said.

Speaking about her erratic career in recent years, Raducanu admitted: "I had a lot of setbacks, one after another. My self-esteem is very connected to my achievements and if I lost a match, I would get very depressed. I was under a lot of pressure."

However, she finished 2024 ranked 57th in the WTA, with a semi-final appearance at the WTA 250 in Nottingham and a round-of-16 finish at Wimbledon – her best result in a Grand Slam since winning the US Open.

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While these results may not be enough to secure her multimillion-dollar sponsorships, they provide a solid foundation for her to continue growing as a player and potentially rediscover the incredible form that captivated the world in the summer of 2021.