Do we like Emma Raducanu?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A decent record with no harmful words found, held back a little by a pass on a women's-pay question and a thin public record on bigger causes.
Emma Raducanu is the teenager who came through qualifying and won the 2021 US Open, the first time anyone had done that. She got an MBE for services to tennis, collected from King Charles in November 2022. Fame landed on her overnight, and she has been working out what to do with it since.
The money talk followed her fast. After a Miami loss in 2022 people online pointed at her sponsorship deals, and she hit back, saying she trained five or six hours a day and sponsor commitments were “three, four days every quarter”. She also said she was learning to be less bothered by the outside noise. It's a fair defence from a 19-year-old getting pelted.
The harm check is quiet. Searches turned up nothing from her on LGBTQ+ rights, trans people, climate or migration, and no dodgy company or conspiracy slide. The one thing that stings is June 2025, when asked about the prize-money gap she said “I'm never really going to take a stand either way.” Critics called it tone-deaf; she said she isn't really playing for money.
The Dubai Championships in 2025 were the grim one. A man who had approached her off-court in different countries was ejected from the stands, and she was reduced to tears mid-match. She chose not to press charges, and months later said “Honestly, I have gotten over it.” Whatever you think of the sport, that's a lot of grace under pressure.
She's also been unlucky on the court side. The coaching merry-go-round and a run of withdrawals have drawn plenty of commentary from old pros, but that's performance chat, not character. Her latest withdrawal, from the China Open in September, came with her saying she'd “try and enjoy the process” of getting back.
The honest gap is on the good-stuff side: the record we can verify is mostly the MBE and a career spent without a scandal. Her political and social voice is basically unwritten. That's not a mark against her, but it's also why she lands at a solid yes and not a gushing one.