From one Grand Slam teenage champion to another, Bianca Andreescu sought to give Emma Raducanu advice on dealing with the world’s attention as a Grand Slam champion.
Raducanu famously won her one and only Grand Slam thus far as an 18-year-old at the 2021 US Open. She became the first qualifier in the Open Era to win a major singles title and the youngest Briton to win one of tennis’ most coveted trophies.
Sadly, that historic run in New York did not breed short-term success, as Raducanu struggled to cope with media and fan scrutiny. She also battled persistent injuries, underwent triple surgery last year, and was forced to shut down her season in mid-April.
Andreescu can relate to the challenge of winning such a massive tournament as the US Open as a teenager. She was 19 when she became the first Canadian to win a Grand Slam in 2019.
In fact, she was the player who set the trend for the current generation of teenagers to triumph at the highest level. Speaking on The Tennis Podcast, where she was invited to talk of her comeback, the 24-year-old empathized with the former WTA World No. 10.
“Definitely I was watching. And then also having Leylah (Fernandez) in the final, I thought that was incredible. But yeah, it’s just a tough position to be in at such a young age.”
Andreescu had some nice words to say about Raducanu, calling her a “mature” person who can scour for solutions to her setbacks. The crafty Canadian advised the 21-year-old to use the attention for “good” and not “self-gratification.”
“Having so much attention on you but it does help you grow much faster and it helps you realize that you really have to savor those moments because you never know when it’ll happen again. I feel like what I could have maybe told her is, and I mean she knows her sh*t, she’s a very mature person, she won the US Open.”
“It’s more like savoring the moment and not taking advantage of it and obviously not letting the attention get to you too much and using it to your advantage, using it for good and not using it for self-gratification.”