"My friends are on holiday for two months, I’m just grinding" - Emma Raducanu opens up on feeling 'jealous' while acknowledging 'amazing privileges'

Emma Raducanu recently opened up that she wasn't jealous of her friends, who go holidaying while she has to work. The Brit also talked about the privileges that she received, saying it was something her friends won't get and that will never come easily.

Raducanu, who had been fighting various injuries, returned to tennis recently but has struggled to find her footing so far. The Brit sent shockwaves throughout the tennis fraternity when she withdrew from the French Open qualifiers as she wanted to focus on the upcoming grass and hardcourt seasons.

As she prepares for the first stop- the grass season, the 21-year-old said in an interview that as a professional athlete, she had to work a lot of hours a day when her friends were out vacationing for months. But this didn't make her jealous of them as she received privileges which her friends wouldn't and those privileges didn't come for free.

"I don’t get too jealous, but of course when my friends are on holiday for like two months in the summer, you’re like okay I’m just out here grinding on the court and travelling and everything," Raducanu said. (via Grazia)"

"But equally I get opportunities that they may never have. The people I get to be in a room with. The experience I get to have first-hand. All of these are such amazing privileges and you’re not going to get them for free."

"100% I’ve had to make sacrifices for the sport" - Emma Raducanu

Emma Raducanu

In the same interview, Emma Raducanu admitted to having made a lot of sacrifices for tennis.

She admitted that her peers in other fields were at the beginning stages of their careers and had time on their hands whereas she had a good 10 years on her as an athlete where she could go all out, post-which she would have to hang her boots.

"100% I’ve had to make sacrifices for the sport,’ she admits. ‘The more I think of it, the more I think I have a span of maybe ten years max where I have to go all out for it. Whereas my peers in their 20s, that’s when their careers just start to take off – in their 30s and 40s – then they can work until they retire. And with me, I’ve got to go all guns blazing. It’s like a 100m race for 10 years, then I can stop.," Raducanu said.

Emma Raducanu has Wimbledon in her sights as she wishes to win her home Slam and lift the Venus Rosewater Dish for the first time.