Emma Raducanu could face a sponsorship crisis after her tearful first-round defeat at the US Open extended her poor record three years after winning the tournament.

The tennis star has now failed to get past the second round at seven of the eight grand slams she has taken part in since her victory in New York aged 18 in 2021.

Raducanu only earned £200,000 in prize money last year as she battled with injury, although her registered company Harbour 6 recorded profits of £9.6million.

Much of her huge income comes from nine lucrative major sponsorship deals with British Airways, Vodafone, Tiffany, Dior, Porsche, Evian, Wilson, Nike and HSBC.

The 21-year-old former British number one has so far earned £414,352 in prize money this year, taking her career total to £3,282,388 according to the sport’s official data.

But questions over the direction of her career are intensifying having played just one tournament since Wimbledon and skipping the Olympics to focus on the US Open.

And Raducanu’s poor recent record which has seen her rise no higher than world number 72 comes as several of her deals are due to be renewed this year along with her management agency contract with IMG, reported the Daily Telegraph.

Today, brand and culture expert Nick Ede told MailOnline: ‘Emma Raducanu has had a winning streak when it comes to brand partnerships and endorsements, but as her star power on the tennis court is starting to fade so will some of her lucrative deals.

‘She is a poster girl for tennis and sports and the UK and has been a very successful brand ambassador but brands want winners and currently she’s not winning.’

He added that Raducanu has a ‘great personality and is stunning’ but while she will still be getting deals, they won’t be as big as before.

Mr Ede continued: ‘Brands want to have sportspeople who inspire and Emma did have a major golden moment.

‘But in the past year her performance has been disappointing – and with consumers having very short attention spans, they aren’t going to buy into her so much now as she isn’t the success that she once was.

‘She also isn’t a sporting legend who has a legacy of success which means she doesn’t yet hold a place in fans’ hearts.

‘I am sure with her statement on her performance and how she’s going to concentrate on being the best player soon she will be on the tip of everyone’s tongues as a winner, which will make brands prick up their ears and throw money at her again.’

It comes after a tearful Raducanu said she was feeling ‘sad’ following her defeat on Tuesday as her wait for a first win at the US Open since her memorable 2021 triumph goes on.

Raducanu stunned the world three years ago when she won the title in her third senior tournament, but it has not been a happy hunting ground since.

After a first-round exit in 2022 and missing last year through injury, Sofia Kenin handed out more misery with a 6-1 3-6 6-4 win on the Grandstand court this week.

Asked how the defeat made her feel, Raducanu paused before fighting back the tears to say: ‘Yeah, I feel down, like I feel sad. This is a tournament I really want to do well in.’

She continued: ‘I’m just going to go back to the drawing board and train and analyse where I went wrong and try and improve for the rest of the season.

‘Obviously, the slams are over for this year, but it’s not actually that long until Australia comes around again.’

Raducanu also admitted that she might have got her preparation wrong ahead of her match against the former Australian Open winner.

‘I would have preferred to probably play a little bit more before coming into the US Open,’ she said. I know when I have a lot of matches, just like every player, you feel really good, you feel like everything’s automatic.

‘I can learn from it. And, you know, manage my schedule slightly differently. It wasn’t just me. It was more of like a collective call and that’s what happened, and I can’t really change it.’

Raducanu opted to skip the Paris Olympics in order to prepare for the US Open, but she ended up playing only three matches in Washington and one in New York.

She returned to London for a training block rather than enter qualifying at tournaments in Toronto and Cincinnati.

Before the US Open began she was steadfast in her assessment that she is suited to training blocks rather than entering every tournament, but losing in the first round suggests that approach backfired.

Raducanu has been careful with her schedule this year as she recovers from double wrist and ankle surgery in 2023.

But there is a suggestion that she is not in total control of her diary as sponsors and management want to protect her image and avoid the possible bad PR of failing to qualify for tournaments.

Her lack of warm-up matches was also highlighted by Tim Henman, who told Sky Sports: ‘This has all been a rebuilding process when she’s coming back from the surgeries. When she has played she has played very well.

He said the three-and-a-half weeks between Raducanu’s Washington quarter-final and the US Open match was a ‘big chunk of the summer to miss’.

Henman added: ‘Obviously they were big tournaments and she wasn’t a direct acceptance (into the main draw) but in hindsight she probably should have been in qualifying (at Toronto and Cincinnati) to get those match reps under her belt.

‘She’s learning all the time and fingers crossed she’s going to have many more opportunities here at the US Open in the future. I still think her game is moving in the right direction and there are still elements that she can do better.’

Last month, Raducanu’s Wimbledon campaign came to a disappointing end after she lost her fourth-round singles match against qualifier Lulu Sun, falling to a 6-2 5-7 6-2 defeat.

She later defended her ‘no-brainer’ decision to pull out of mixed doubles with Andy Murray citing a sore wrist, which denied the British legend a final match at the All England Club.

The former US Open champion received much criticism, with Judy Murray branding the decision ‘astonishing’ before insisting that she was being sarcastic.

Raducanu has been trying to rebuild her career this season after recovering from double wrist and ankle surgery that left her out for nine months until this January and saw her world ranking drop to 301st.

One of the highs was her strong performances in the Billie Jean King Cup qualifiers in April that saw Britain beat France to reach November’s Finals.

She also reached the semis of the Nottingham Open in June before losing to Katie Boulter, and got to the quarter-finals of the Eastbourne International later that month where she exited to Daria Kasatkina. 

Raducanu also made it to the quarter-finals of the Citi Open in Washington DC.

But at the start of the year she went out of the Australian Open to Yafan Wang in a second-round match where she was ‘throwing up’ in her mouth.

Raducanu also suffered an early exit at the Madrid Open in April when she lost in the first round to Maria Lourdes Carle.

Before her match on Tuesday in New York, Raducan said she felt ‘really tenacious and gritty’ and that she had ‘got my spark back’. 

But play did not got her way, with Kenin took a particular liking to Raducanu’s serve and breaking it three times on her way to a dominant first set.

The Briton missed three break points of her own in the first set but made a move at the start of the second by taking Kenin’s serve.

The American recovered but a crucial point at 2-2 and 15-15, where Raducanu hit a backhand winner down the line, changed the momentum of the second set.

It helped her break, with Kenin losing her cool and hitting the ball into the backboard. Two brilliant winners saw Raducanu take a second break and set in style.

But it all went wrong for Raducanu in the fifth game of the decider as she was broken, with Kenin clinically closing out the match.

Raducanu is next scheduled to play in Seoul in mid-September and is then likely to play other events in the Far East – in Hong Kong and China, where her mother was born.