Emma Raducanu hits out at ‘unfair’ criticism of sponsorship deals

Emma Raducanu has defended her commitment to tennis amid the “unfair” response to her growing list of sponsorship deals. The US Open champion suffered a frustrating second-round loss to Katerina Sinaiakova at the Miami Open on Thursday, bringing her hard-court campaign to an end until later this summer.

Following the defeat, some comments on social media again highlighted her growing list of commercial partners. Porsche announced a deal with the 19-year-old at the start of this week but the British No 1 insists her main priority is improving results on the court.

“Maybe you just see, on the news or on social media, me signing this or that deal and I feel like it’s quite misleading because I’m doing five, six hours a day [of training], I’m at the club for 12 hours a day,” Raducanu told various national newspapers.

“But I throw out one post in the car on the way to practice and all of a sudden it’s ‘I don’t focus on tennis’. I think that it is unfair but it’s something I have learned to deal with and become a bit more insensitive to the outside noise.

“At the end of the day, I feel like my days [with sponsors] are pretty limited. I’m not doing crazy days. I’m doing three, four days every quarter, so it’s really not that much.”

Poland's Iga Swiatek will take over as world No 1 following a 6-2, 6-0 win over Viktorija Golubic in the second round of the Miami Open. The 20-year-old – who becomes the first Polish player to achieve the feat – was only elevated to world No 2 after winning the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells last week. She will officially become the youngest player to make her No 1 debut since Caroline Wozniacki, who was 216 days younger, in 2010, when the new rankings are published on 4 April.

Swiatek is on a