Emma Raducanu spoke about her career prior to her loss to Siniakova and she admitted she won't follow Barty into early retirement.
Earlier this week, women’s World number one and reigning Australian Open victor Ash Barty announced her retirement from tennis aged just 25 years old, at the peak of her powers. Barty’s retirement took the sport by surprise and as such emotional tributes have begun pouring in for the Australian legend.
19-year-old US Open champion Raducanu will likely be hoping to have a career trajectory similar to Barty’s and win more Major titles of her own however she won't retire early. Speaking
before her Miami Open loss to Katerina Siniakova, World number 13
Raducanu said:
"For me, I want to be in the game as long as possible. I’m
only 19. I’ve just come on tour and I want to be in the game until I’m
in my thirties. It just shows you don’t need to be only ‘tennis, tennis, tennis.’ I think that education part helped a lot. I know a lot of players who quit school when they’re 12 or 13. They over train and they pick up injuries. When you’re that young, it’s not healthy to be training that many hours."
She further added:
"I feel by having school it definitely kept my mind occupied. Opened
up the more intellectual side of tennis, because I feel like I like to
use my brain more. I really like
motorsport, so when I get time off, which is pretty rare, I just try and
spend time with my family and friends, catch up, always following the
races. Right now all I care about is
getting through the season in one piece. I feel like because I have been
losing early every week, I don’t really care because I kind of like the
challenge of being knocked down and trying to climb back up there.”