Emma Raducanu heeded Roger Federer advice to escape ‘horrible situation’

Emma Raducanu has already been taking steps to revitalise her career by acting on the advice of Roger Federer to block out the noise as she eyes a return to prominence over the coming months and years. The young Brit has endured a difficult time of things as of late and recently announced that she will not be competing at the French Open or Wimbledon after undergoing surgery on her hands and ankle.

Raducanu has also been forced to deal with the pitfalls of fame since rising to international prominence thanks to her remarkable US Open triumph back in 2021, although it seems as if she has been following the advice of Federer in dealing with her newly-found recognition over the last couple of years. The Swiss icon previously warned against the dangers of criticising young athletes on social media, with today’s generation of players under more online scrutiny than ever before.

“I think a lot has to be down to social media, the first ten years of my life there was no social media, maybe I had just a website, then the next ten years social media was everywhere,” said Federer while Raducanu was on her way to her maiden Grand Slam title at Flushing Meadows back in 2021.

“We need a revolution, or at least an evolution of where we are today. I think we do need to help, coach and mentor the younger generation more. I can’t imagine going through the beginning of my career with social media, I have no clue how I would have handled it. For every ten nice comments there’s always one negative comment and, of course, that is the one you focus on. It’s a horrible situation.”

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Raducanu has since acted on Federer’s warning by taking a break from social media, which she credited with removing plenty of stress from her life after crashing out of this year’s Australian Open at the hands of Coco Gauff in only the second round.

“After the AO I deleted WhatsApp and Instagram off my phone, and after that, I’ve been living under my own little rock,” said Raducanu back in March. “I felt like sometimes you go through patches where you just want to zone in on yourself, and I was very content with my life without it. I’ve learned regardless of what you do, if you do good, if you do bad, people are going to come at you regardless.”

Raducanu has returned to Instagram in the last few weeks but it remains to be seen whether any further social media breaks will be on the horizon in due course, with the 20-year-old facing one of the toughest challenges of her short career to date as she continues to recover from her latest injury setback. She is expected to miss the rest of this year following her surgery and will need to stay mentally strong throughout the entire process in order to give herself the best chance of returning to her former heights when she eventually gets back on the court.

It is easy to forget that Raducanu is still very much an emerging talent and will have plenty of years left to fine-tune her mental outlook when she makes her comeback from injury in search of more silverware and, ultimately, further Grand Slam glory in due course. However, it seems clear that she could benefit from following Federer’s advice regarding her use of social media in order to stay level-headed in her ongoing pursuit of greatness.

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