Emma Navarro has opened up about her delight at being part of a resurgence in American tennis. Navarro is among five of her compatriots who occupy spots in the top 20 of the WTA rankings.
Coco Gauff currently leads the US contingent on the women’s side of the sport, with the former US Open winner sitting in third spot. She is closely followed by Jessica Pegula, who recently reached the Miami Open final, and Australian Open winner Madison Keys completes the top five in the world. Despite jostling for position, world No.11 Navarro has shown her true character by embracing the competition.
“It’s awesome. Even just to be grouped in with those names is really cool,” Navarro said to Sportskeeda. “It’s really cool that American tennis is back, I guess you could say, and thriving.
“It’s fun to cheer Jess on when she’s playing in Miami, and Maddie, of course, starting the year off winning the Australian Open title. I think we push each other to always keep getting better.”
While Navarro will hope to join them higher up the rankings, fellow US star Amanda Anisimova has also climbed into the top 20 after her triumph at the Qatar Open in February. Navarro was crowned the WTA’s most improved player in 2024 and continued her positive trajectory by winning the Merida Open last month.
The 23-year-old’s next opportunity for success comes in her hometown at the Charleston Open. It is a unique tournament for Navarro as the competition is owned by her billionaire father Ben Navarro.
He built his substantial wealth after founding the Sherman Financial Group in 1998, which led to a credit card and debt collection empire. Navarro’s most valuable asset, Credit One made £356million ($453m) in the most recent financial year.
According to Forbes, the tennis star stands to inherit a portion of her father’s £3.71billion ($4.8bn) fortune. Remarkably, that eye-watering figure is smaller than the £5.8billion ($7.6bn) net worth of Pegula’s father Terry, who owns NFL franchise the Buffalo Bills and NHL team Buffalo Sabres.
Despite her family’s wealth, Navarro has forged her own successful career on the tennis court, with her prize money totalling £3.3million ($4.3m). However, she confessed that she is still getting to grips with her relatively newfound fame.
“More people recognise me, for sure, especially in Charleston,” Navarro said. “But I’ve learned to just embrace that part of it. It’s a little bit unnatural having a bunch of people know who you are, and you don’t know who they are. That line can get blurry a little bit. People think they know you a little more than they do. That’s been something that I’ve had to kind of get used to.”
“In another sense, so many things have stayed the same,” she added. “I’m still putting a lot of my time and energy into tennis and continuing to improve myself and be the best player I can be. I’m really lucky to have people that are very grounding for me around me. They make me feel like ‘regular Emma’, I guess.”
Navarro will be hoping to bounce back from her recent opening round loss to Emma Raducanu at the Miami Open. Ranked as the fourth seed at the Charleston Open, she faces Hailey Baptiste in the round of 32 on Wednesday.
Content Source: www.express.co.uk