{"id":455583,"date":"2026-03-03T16:26:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/455583\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T16:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:26:14","slug":"emma-raducanu-gets-boost-from-billionaire-star-as-brit-continues-climb-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/455583\/","title":{"rendered":"Emma Raducanu gets boost from billionaire star as Brit continues climb | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emma Raducanu has jumped to world No. 24 in the WTA rankings<\/a> thanks to Emma Navarro’s recent decline<\/a>. So far in 2026, the British tennis<\/a> star has made it to her first final since winning the 2021 US Open<\/a> – being beaten 6-0, 6-2 by Sorana Cirstea in the Transylvania Open in February.<\/p>\n

Despite a relatively mediocre start to the year otherwise, including a second-round exit at the Australian Open<\/a>, she has still been bumped up the WTA rankings yet again. This is due to Navarro’s sharp drop from No. 15 at the beginning of 2026 to 25th by March. The American returned to the Merida Open last week, aiming to defend her title after failing to win anything in her first six tournaments of the year.<\/p>\n

But a round-of-16 exit to Zhang Shuai was a shock to many, especially considering she was seeded second and had a first-round bye at the WTA 500 tournament. This loss was even a shock to her 37-year-old opponent, who had been 4-1 and 3-1 down to Navarro on separate occasions.<\/p>\n

Shuai said: “I don\u2019t really know because during the match I was thinking the same question. I didn\u2019t do anything special. Maybe I like [how she hits] her balls and she doesn\u2019t like my balls. Yeah, I don\u2019t really know, but I just played my game, tried to focus on myself and that was a great match, 4-1 down and 3-1 down in the second set.”<\/p>\n

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Navarro, 24, has won career prize money totalling $5,862,102 (\u00a34,375,180), per the WTA. Her billionaire status, however, comes from the future inheritance from father Ben, who is the founder of Sherman Financial Group and owner of Credit One Bank.<\/p>\n

This gives him a net worth of around \u00a31.12billion ($1.5bn), as per Forbes<\/a>, making Navarro’s father the 2,108th-richest person in the world. Raducanu<\/a> doesn’t have this amount of wealth behind her, but she has reunited with coach Mark Petchey ahead of her return at Indian Wells this week.<\/p>\n

The English tennis coach has come back to join Raducanu’s backroom staff after she split from Francisco Roig following a six-month partnership. Despite the 23-year-old developing a decent bond with Rafael Nadal<\/a>‘s former coach and improving between tournaments, former British No.1 Laura Robson believes Petchey is the best fit for the US Open hero.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Sky Sports<\/a>, Robson said: “I think we make such a big deal out of the coaching situation and as long as she is feeling happy on the court, as long as she\u2019s confident out there, then that\u2019s half the job done, and that\u2019s what coaches try and bring out in you when you do have one.<\/p>\n

“She obviously gets on really well with Petch. They\u2019ve been on and off for a fair few years now and it\u2019s someone she knows. They have the same ideas. They agree on so much that she needs to bring out there, so why not?<\/p>\n

“As long as you\u2019ve got someone who\u2019s taking care of the boring stuff like the logistics of booking practice, finding someone to practice with, racket re-strings – all of that. As long as that\u2019s taken care of, then you can just focus on trying to play.<\/p>\n

“They have the same identity of how both of them feel she should be as a player.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emma Raducanu has jumped to world No. 24 in the WTA rankings thanks to Emma Navarro’s recent decline.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[13369,6962,36423,101,118,56,54,55,11582,11572],"class_list":["post-455583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-emma-navarro","tag-emma-raducanu","tag-mark-petchey","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wta-rankings","tag-wta-tour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}