Emma Navarro has been one of the most-talked-about players of the 2024 US Open. She is setting new peaks in her career with a stellar run at the ongoing Grand Slam tournament in New York. Navarro is into the semifinals of the tournament after a thumping win over Paula Badosa earlier this week. Despite her amazing performance though, the 23-year-old is also in the news for a major fan uproar that she caused due to one of her statements.

The American star was born with a silver spoon and is the daughter of billionaire businessman and philanthropist, Ben Navarro. However, her ‘9 to 5’ job remark didn’t go down well with the fans, who felt that she was boasting about her privileged status. After her win over Badosa, she revealed, “I wanna also thank my dad. I think he saw a vision from the time I was really young. He knew maybe I was a bit ADHD or something to be a sitting in a classroom or a 9 to 5. He saw something in me from a young age. So thanks Dad for sending me on this journey.” 

While many tennis players struggled with basic facilities, Navarro had many resources available to excel in her career. As a result, when she suggested that her dad understood she was not suited for a 9 to 5 job, it didn’t go down well with some of the fans, even though she didn’t mean it negatively at all. She was only praising her dad for being supportive.

Emma Navarro gets into an unwanted controversy at the US Open

Being a billionaire heiress, Navarro had plenty of options as far as her career was concerned. However, she chose to pursue tennis and has been putting in the hard yards ever since. But some of the fans were just not ready to accept that she went through any kind of hardship. One fan wrote, “Her dad is a BILLIONAIRE let’s not act like it was a hardship to send her to boarding school where she could play tennis.”

On the other hand, a section of fans hit out at Navarro with sarcastic remarks about her privileged status. Navarro’s father is the founder and CEO of Sherman Financial Group and has a net worth of $1.5 Billion, according to Forbes. Thus, one would think that Navarro made the most of the resources available at her disposal. A netizen hit back with a sarcastic reply, “Thank you papa for using your millions and billions of dollars on me your poor middle-class daughter.”

Navarro’s statement which portrayed the life of the middle class became a major talking point on X. One fan tried to suggest that Navarro probably doesn’t have as many fans as Qinwen Zheng because of the statements like this. But Navarro didn’t make that statement in isolation. That was only a part of her tribute to her father, towards whom she was expressing her gratefulness in a cheerful way. Fans, however, saw it from a different lens, as one of them wrote, “Navarro “I don’t understand how Queenwen has so many fans. Also Navarro….”

Like Navarro, Jessica Pegula also comes from a privileged background. Thus, fans were quick to compare the two, and one fan lauded Pegula for not boasting about her family’s wealth. The comment read, “That’s why Pegula is the people’s princess fr, you would never catch her saying s–t like this lmao she humble but she aware of her background.” Just to be clear though, Navarro didn’t boast about her family’s wealth either.

Lastly, one fan couldn’t get over the irony of a billionaire’s daughter claiming that she wasn’t meant to be in a classroom or a 9 to 5 job, as they wrote, “Billionaire daughter talking bout 9 to 5.”

Despite facing this backlash on social media, Navarro will be focused on her upcoming semi-final match, as she faces Aryna Sabalenka in a crunch battle later today. Do you think Emma Navarro can win the US Open 2024? Let us know in the comments below.