Hsieh Su-wei won plenty of new admirers at the Australian Open as she leveraged her unorthodox game to an unexpected quarter-final spot, but despite all the added attention the 35-year-old does not expect sponsors to be banging down her door.
Taiwan's Hsieh, who became the oldest woman in the Open era to reach a Grand Slam quarter-final for the first time, saw her Melbourne Park adventure brought to an end on Tuesday in a 6-2 6-2 thrashing by Naomi Osaka.
The world's top ranked doubles player, with three major titles, Hsieh has made just over $8 million in career prize money and will take home an additional A$525,000 ($408,500) for her run in the singles here.
On Monday, Hsieh's coach revealed she had struggled to find sponsors throughout her career and did not have any endorsement deals.
"Tennis is my first priority," Hsieh said at her post-match news conference.
"If the other stuff comes, it comes. I don't mind if doesn't, because you've seen me do good here. If I do good I use it to pay my team.
"If I don't do good ... I don't have enough to pay my team well."
Sponsors in Taiwan have reached out to her before but things did not work out, she added.
"I don't have a manager in Taiwan. It's really tough. Only if they're sure they want to have a contract with me can we make it work," Hsieh said.
"I went to a place to try to get a contract with a company in Taiwan, I spent a lot of time on it and it didn't happen. I ended up not focusing on practice or tournaments. It's not good for me because at my age I don't have much time to waste."
($1 = 1.2852 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Simon Jennings in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
