The 19-year-old can expect a huge amount of coverage as Wimbledon looms into view, and not all of it will be positive
There is a temptation to wince just a little each time a news item or a social media line drops containing the words Emma Raducanu. Not because of anything to do with Raducanu herself, who will shortly hit the one-year anniversary of her entry into the full women’s tour, during which she has been not just startlingly successful but gracious in defeat and polished in public, rattling through the chaos, the bruises, the wrong turns of a debut teenage year in professional sport. She looks happy. This is all good, isn’t it?
And yet, of course, that’s not the whole story. Raducanu was in the news for two reasons this week. First her exit from the Madrid Open, beaten by Anhelina Kalinina in the third round. And second for her appearance in something called the Forbes 30 Under 30 List, the kind of self-generating media gush that allows people to produce titillating web galleries of glossy, aspirational people, but also gives an idea of brand value, marketing heft, career trajectory.