How Emma Raducanu may face financial disaster in 2025

Professional athletes are in a short window to earn as much money as they can before they have to retire in their 30s or 40s, making every endorsement deal and paycheck essential for their future lives beyond sport.

Life for athletes who play solo sports can especially be difficult because every result depends solely on you, and that has been the case for 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.