The former US Open champion Raducanu came into the match on the worst run results in her career, having lost four successive matches. made the ideal start with a break of serve in the opening game and rounded off a 6-4 6-2 victory in fine fashion with her third ace of the 90-minute contest.
She said, I just tried to stay really focused on the points in front of me. there were some momentum shifts throughout the match and when I got broken twice early in the sets I just regrouped really well and I managed to break back immediately both times.
I was really pleased with how I fought and competed against Maria, she’s a top player, she is as high as three in the world. I am just really proud of my performance.
Raducana has now won all three of her matches against Sakkari without dropping a set, including in the US Open semi finals in 2021 and last year at Wimbledon.
I think we play similar in some ways, she is really a good athletic.
Raducanu, am not necessarily going to give all my tactics away, it is just a very difficult match every time we play each other. am happy to have won on all these occasions in all big tournaments and very happy to get through to the next round.
Raducanu had failed to capitalise on wild card entries into tournaments in Abu Dhabi and Doha over the last two weeks, losing in the first round both times to Marketa Vondrousova and Ekaterina Alexandrova.
Those losses followed another first-round defeat to Cristina Bucsa in Singapore and a losing to Iga Swiatek after she had reached the third round of the Australian Open for the fi
.