Emma Raducanu has advised Luke Littler, her successor as Britain’s most famous teenage sports star, to block out all the noise that comes with precocious success.

By winning the World Darts Championship at 17, Littler has undercut even Raducanu’s extraordinary triumph at the 2021 US Open, when she was just three months short of her 19th birthday.

In many ways, Raducanu’s career could be seen as a cautionary tale. She has not gone past the fourth round of a major since, and spent the initial months – or arguably years – after her breakthrough coming to terms with her sudden prominence.

Distractions have played a part. As she told reporters in November, she found it hard to say “no” to sponsors when they asked for extra time with her. Only recently has she become more disciplined about putting her own career first.

“Amazing respect to him,” said Raducanu, when asked about Littler’s victory over Michael van Gerwen in the recent PDC final at Alexandra Palace. “It’s … yeah, it’s difficult. In my case, I didn’t necessarily have really strong foundations when I won the US Open. So now I feel like I’m building those and building a good team around me as well.”

Asked about suddenly finding herself the centre of attention, Raducanu replied: “Yeah, not much prepares you for that. You feel like you’re constantly a bit on edge because you’re being followed or something.”

In Raducanu’s case, there was a literal truth to this last point. Five months after her New York triumph, she had to go to court to ask for a restraining order against a 35-year-old stalker. Such, unfortunately, are the downsides of life as a modern celebrity. And that was only one of the challenges she faced. Her answer to the Littler question also addressed the constant sniping and second-guessing that comes with a sizeable social-media presence.

“I think the biggest part is just the judgment and the comments about every single decision that you make,” said Raducanu, whose personal experience of darts is largely limited to training with Billie Jean King Cup team-mate Harriet Dart. “That for me was really difficult to deal with and to try and desensitise myself to. And to just understand that comes with the territory you’re in.

“I think trying to stay away from that [noise] and keep on my path has probably been the biggest adjustment for me.”

Raducanu is once again looking for a new start this season as she works with freshly appointed fitness trainer Yutaka Nakamura.

She had hoped to come into this week’s Australian Open with a strong off-season training block behind her, as well as some competitive matchplay during a lead-in event in Auckland.

Instead, an untimely back spasm – followed by lingering pain in the same area for the next three weeks – has limited her activity on both fronts. But all that frustration will soon be forgotten if she manages to defeat 26th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova on Tuesday.

This is a challenging draw, for sure, but not an insurmountable one if Raducanu can find some rhythm. On each of her three previous visits to the Australian Open, she has opened with a win before exiting in the second round.

Speaking to reporters this weekend, Raducanu said she had put safety first in Auckland, while deliberately closing her mind to the likelihood of further social-media criticism once her withdrawal had been announced.

“Something that I probably would have done last year is probably played,” she explained, “and you don’t know what happens in that match, and you pick up a niggle and it affects your preparation for this week.

“But I think growing the maturity and discipline is how I’m going to do it. I’m not going to get swayed by comments or anything, because I know that there’s a risk of setting myself back and doing big damage to the existing problem right now. So I think that was where it was really helpful to have Yutaka and Nick [Cavaday, her coach] just telling me how it is, and being quite firm about the decision.”

Asked to identify her goals for 2025, Raducanu said: “I’ve been putting in really, really good work for the last couple of months, bar the three weeks with the back. I know that over time, that’s going to compound, and result in something. And at that moment, you’ll wonder, ‘Oh, why did it happen all of a sudden?’ But it’s not, it’s an accumulation of all the days’ work that you have been doing. So I think my biggest goal this year is to apply myself with that level of focus and discipline every single day.”