Emma Raducanu dismisses 'opinions' on off-court endorsements

Emma Raducanu has dismissed outside "opinions" regarding her off-court activities, and insisted she is leaning only on those within her "close circle".

Raducanu, 19, has racked up a number of lucrative sponsorship deals since her sensational win at the US Open in September. On Thursday she added Evian to the list, which includes her role as brand ambassador for fashion house Dior and luxury jewellery brand Tiffany too.

Though she has previously said red carpet appearances will never trump time on the practice court, has still received some criticism, most notably from England rugby head coach Eddie Jones. Last month he apologised in a letter to Raducanu, after making controversial comments which suggested she had been distracted by her new-found fame.

She reiterated that she is taking advice only from those she trusts best though. "To me the things that matter are the expectations of myself and what I want to achieve and what I want to get out of the day," she told Sky News on Thursday. "It's just about improving and seeing yourself get better and I don't take anyone else's opinions into account except for my close circle."

That close circle now includes new coach Torben Beltz. Last month she confirmed she had chosen German Beltz, former longtime coach of Angelique Kerber, to lead her into the next stage of her career as a reigning major champion.

His appointment comes ahead of the Australian Open in January, and after spending a couple of months "coaching herself" since cutting ties with short-term option Andrew Richardson a few weeks after her success in New York.

Reminiscing on her whirlwind year, Raducanu gave insight into how she coped with her unexpected success. "I arrived in New York just hoping to get through qualifying maybe. I was pretty tired. I just had the most amazing time and I think the key to that was I just focused on the day. The time flew by, it went so fast by the end of it I was like, 'I don't want to leave yet, I want to stay', and it was getting to the latter stages of the tournament and I was thinking, 'But, what if? You're here, so why not?'. But no one made a big deal of it.

"It wasn't until maybe the last week when I thought 'OK' – I was having poke for dinner every single night for three weeks, because I didn't want to take any chances," she admitted. The best memories I have of New York is the amount of fun I had out there. I definitely felt I faced my own sort of obstacles and the way I overcame those.

"For example, the first time I stepped out onto Ashe (Arthur Ashe Stadium) I was quite nervous and didn't realise until I started and got off to a slow start, and then the way I overcame that – by the end I was completely thriving out there in front of so many people."