Tennis Prose




Apr/23

25

Emma Cancels Tennis Media In Madrid

By Scoop Malinowski

Emma Raducanu has had enough of the same stale, redundant questions from the tennis media and she took effective action at the Mutua Madrid Open.

Media day for players was yesterday and in the mixed zone Raducanu sent a blunt message to tennis reporters about how she feels about their unoriginal questions and negative articles about her disappointing results since winning the US Open in 2021.

Raducanu was asked sixteen questions by the media at Mutua Madrid Open and answered them with just 58 words, mostly “monosyllabic answers”, according to Mike Dickson of the London Daily Mail.

Clearly Raducanu is politely telling the smothering tennis media to just leave her alone and just let her try to figure it out on her own.

It’s a miracle Raducanu has lasted this long enduring the suffering of hearing the same droning questions about how she feels, how she expects to do, subpar results, training, US Open 2021, blah blah blah.

Imagine a badly slumping tennis journalist being forced to answer questions from henpecking fans after 20 straight lousy articles with loads of factual and spelling errors… that’s similar to the torture and frustration poor Raducanu must be feeling now towards the predictable, unoriginal and parasitic tennis media.

Frankly, it’s no wonder Raducanu has reached her breaking point and essentially told the media this week to, “Get lost and go bother some other player. I’ve had enough.”

Hopefully the “awful” tennis media, as Reilly Opelka called them, will get the hint and back off and finally just leave Emma alone.

20 year old Raducanu, currently ranked no. 85, reached the third round in Madrid a year ago, could fall out of the top 100 if she loses early this week. She will open main draw play against a qualifier named Victoriya Tomova. If she beats the 28 year old Tomova (ranked 73 and from Bulgaria), she will play nemesis Iga Swiatek in the second round.

It’s understandable Raducanu’s patience with the tennis media has ended – she lost her last match at the Porsche Grand Prix in Germany to Jelena Ostapenko 62 61 and she fell first round in Miami to Bianca Andreescu 36 63 26. Her record in 2023 is 5-5.

Maybe Maria Sharapova explained the most accurately why Emma is struggling

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12 comments

  • Tony Harmsworth · April 25, 2023 at 5:45 pm

    About time she stood up to them. Hopefully she’ll take Tomova in two sets then, on the faster Madrid courts, might do better against Swaitek. A good performance will help her confidence, then she’ll maybe get a luckier draw in Rome.

  • Scoop Malinowski · April 25, 2023 at 5:58 pm

    It was overdue Tony, people like you and I were annoyed by what the media was doing to her, she must have felt ten times more aggravated by it. Good to see her taking action and showing some snarl, which is needed sometimes. Hope she plays with an edge and chip on her shoulder. It will probably help. Being the media’s whipping girl was not good for her spirits. She’s the boss and sometimes heads have to roll.

  • catherine · April 26, 2023 at 3:17 am

    Emma probably doesn’t see why she should write reporters’ stories for them, although she probably could, being somewhat brighter than a few I could name.

    Her ‘obligations’ begin and end on the court whatever the WTA rulebook says.

  • catherine · April 26, 2023 at 7:23 am

    Emma’s year goes from bad to worse. WD from Madrid due to right hand injury.

    Maybe she doesn’t want to play any more ? Or is she some kind of female version of Thiem ?

  • Scoop Malinowski · April 26, 2023 at 8:15 am

    I don’t understand why tennis reporters can’t just watch her from a distance and leave her alone, she doesn’t want to talk to them and answer the same endless draining boring questions. They have no originality.

  • Scoop Malinowski · April 26, 2023 at 8:20 am

    I think this is the best explanation for Emma’s struggles https://www.tennis-prose.com/articles/sharapova-explains-players-resentment-of-emma/

  • catherine · April 26, 2023 at 9:04 am

    This is an extract from an article mainly about cricket but I think it’s particularly relevant now re Emma. Some of the Twitter comments I saw today were really vile.

    ‘Emma Raducanu is said to have deleted all social media, including WhatsApp, from her phone. If not a total withdrawal, yet, it’s still a significant move for the 20-year-old, given she has 2.5m Instagram followers who are used to hearing from her almost daily, not to mention a host of corporate sponsors.

    A quick scour of her Instagram now has a ghoulish feel, with most posts obviously published in order to fill a contractual agreement. Raducanu has said she is “living under her own little rock” and is “zoning in on herself”. Her recent run of poor form and spate of injuries, coupled with an endless stream of online comment and criticism, are no doubt factors: “If you do good or bad, people are going to come at you regardless.”

    Writing in the Sunday Times last week, Rob Stephen described Raducanu’s digital detox as “a lesson for us all”, noting that there are numerous studies that show how social media can lead people, particularly young people, down a path of loneliness and self-loathing and is unequivocal: “We need to actively push back against the creeping, purposeless and [literally] depressing march of smartphone addiction.”

    He is not alone of course, we all know this stuff and yet it is difficult to give up, especially for those who can earn thousands of pounds for a single post.

  • Scoop Malinowski · April 26, 2023 at 9:16 am

    Catherine, the rotten tennis media may end up destroying Emma’s love for tennis and her spirit, if they haven’t already. That’s what the media will do, they destroy lives, look what they tried to do to Djokovic, look at what they did to Trump. “Media is the enemy of the world.” – Donald Trump quote. Just yesterday the despicable Rennae Stubbs called Holger Rune “punchable.” Here you have a leading figure in the rotten tennis media inciting violence and hate against a young striving ambitious ATP star and champion Holger Rune. In an equal world, can we say Rennae Stubbs is “punchable” too? Because I know a few people who’d like to pay Stubbs some of her own equality.

  • Matt Segel · April 26, 2023 at 2:45 pm

    Personally, I think it’s a Eugenie Bouchard, Anna Kournikova situation. She is very camera friendly, is rich and probably thinks she could just be a model. There are parties and galas and she has to play hungry talented opponents who resent the above and want to win that much more.

    Advertisers and photo shoots are just ad much to blame.

  • Scoop Malinowski · April 26, 2023 at 5:10 pm

    Matt, Raducanu actually won a Grand Slam singles title, so she’s more than just a very talented pretty face, she’s a Grand Slam champ who can win two, three or four more. Everybody is extra motivated to knock her off. The other British girls are probably backstabbers and jealous of her, she has no allies now among the other wta players, even her coach probably only cares about the money.

  • catherine · April 27, 2023 at 2:04 am

    I don’t think Emma is interested in modelling. People underestimate just how bright she is and the enormous change her life has taken. When she won the USO she’d just finished years of schooling at a highly rated school and instead of following her friends off to university immediately entered an environment which must have seemed quite strange to her and full of stresses and strains the average 18 yr old doesn’t encounter.

    Scoop’s right – Emma’s not just a pretty face, she’s a talented player and that unfortunately makes life more complicated for her. BTW, I’ve not heard any substantiated gossip that Emma is unpopular in the dressingroom. I live in England, I would know.

  • Scoop Malinowski · April 27, 2023 at 7:24 am

    Do you see any other wta players liking her social media posts? She’s very popular w wta players as a target to hunt, they all want her scalp.

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