Emma Navarro’s breakthrough 2024 season made her one of the faces of American women’s tennis but the 23-year-old insists that she is still “a regular Emma” despite being in a completely different situation now compared to where she was only a few years ago.
Reaching the Auckland semifinal and becoming a WTA champion in Hobart in the first two weeks of 2024 was only the start for the American, who also went on to make her maiden Grand Slam semifinal at the 2023 US Open and break into the top-10 for the first time in her career.
With her current ranking of No. 11 in the world, Navarro is the third-best-ranked American female tennis player – only behind No. 3 Coco Gauff and fourth-ranked Jessica Pegula. Naturally, the 23-year-old’s success led to more people recognizing her but also following and rooting for her.
“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.” Navarro told the Charleston tournament website.
Navarro: I have people that are very grounding for me around me
The 2024 US Open semifinalist highlighted that while her career has been on the rise for more than a year now, she still keeps “Investing a lot of time and energy” into getting better daily.
“I’m really lucky to have people that are very grounding for me around me. They make me feel like ‘regular Emma’, I guess,” the 23-year-old added.
In the same interview, Navarro specifically mentioned her mindset, claiming that she accepts a loss only when the match is officially over. Until then, she believes that she can win even if facing a major deficit.
This week, Navarro is competing at the WTA 500 tournament in Charleston and there will certainly be a lot of attention on her as the third seed but also the home favorite. One very interesting thing about the 23-year-old in Charleston is that her billionaire father Ben Navarro owns the tournament.
Tennis World USA