Among the many great pleasures of Emma Raducanu’s fairy-tale US Open victory was the freedom with which she expressed herself, both in terms of her tennis and through her naturally engaging personality and infectious smile. In her first match since becoming a grand slam champion, that joyous sense of abandon was as absent from her game as it was from her demeanour, the British teenager cutting an exasperated figure as she fell to a 6-2, 6-4 defeat against Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus.
“I played how I felt,” Sasnovich said afterwards, an accurate appraisal of a performance full of enterprise and variety – but words that might have made an equally apt summary of Raducanu’s approach to her Flushing Meadows campaign. That the Briton was unable to replicate the same brand of unfettered play she produced in New York is entirely understandable. The sense of excitement and expectation surrounding Raducanu remains at fever pitch and, as she acknowledged, coming to terms with the accompanying pressures will inevitably take time. At 18 years of age, that is a commodity she has in abundance.
“It’s going to take me time to adjust really to what’s going on,” said Raducanu. “I mean, I’m still so new to everything. Like the experiences that I’m going through right now, even though I might not feel 100% amazing right now, I know they’re for the greater good. For the bigger picture, I’ll be thanking this moment.
“That’s the lesson I think, that you can easily get sucked into being so focused on the result and getting disappointed. I mean, I’m 18 years old. I need to cut myself some slack.”
In the face of such maturity, it is easy to forget quite how inexperienced Raducanu is. It bears repeating that this was only her fifth tour-level event. While she has reached the fourth round of Wimbledon and won the US Open, she has yet to win a match at a WTA Tour tournament. And this, as she pointed out, was just the second night match of her short professional career.
“Playing at night is always going to be different,” said Raducanu, who is scheduled to play at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow later this month before a planned appearance at the Transylvania Open in Romania, where her father was born.
“I haven’t had much experience with night matches. I’ve only played one before, on Ashe. I’m still very, very new to the tour. I think that experience just comes from playing week in, week out and experiencing all these different things. I’m kind of glad that what happened today happened, so I can learn and take it as a lesson. Going forward, I’ll just have more experienced banked.”
For an event already shorn of Ashleigh Barty, Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams, it was nonetheless an unlooked-for outcome. Raducanu has been the headline act since her arrival in the California desert. She featured prominently in the tournament’s social media promotion, and her practice sessions quickly became a magnet for spectators eager to catch a glimpse of the charismatic British teenager who swept all before her at Flushing Meadows.
As a grand slam champion up against an opponent ranked 100 in the world, Raducanu inevitably started the match a heavy favourite in the eyes of many. Yet it was Sasnovich who held the trump cards of experience and match sharpness. Three years ago, the Belarusian beat former champion Petra Kvitova en route to the last 16 at Wimbledon, rising to a career-high ranking of 30th. The 27-year-old has struggled to maintain that level since, but her lowly ranking belies the quality and range of her game.
Briefly, as Raducanu slammed winners off both wings on the way to winning the first six points of the match, it looked as though she might pick up from where she had left off in New York. Yet an element of ring rust was perhaps inevitable after the whirlwind of interviews, public engagements and endorsement deals that have filled her scheduled in recent weeks, and it soon became clear that Raducanu was struggling to find her signature sharp movement and bold shot-making.
Whereas Raducanu’s flawless campaign in Queens was built on three confidence-building wins in qualifying, here it was Sasnovich who had the edge in terms of acclimatising to the playing conditions, the Belarusian sweeping aside Spain’s Maria Camila Osorio Serrano while Raducanu, the 17th seed, sat out the first round with a bye. Did it make a difference? Whatever the case, Sasnovich, who has also played events in Luxembourg and Chicago since the US Open, was undeniably the sharper of the two women.
“You definitely get sharp by playing matches,” said Raducanu. “I’m not match-tight right now. Like I haven’t played a competition in a month, since the US Open. That will just come just playing week in, week out.”
An early indication of what lay ahead came in the second game, where Raducanu followed a drilled return of serve with an undercooked volley that allowed the scrambling Sasnovich to race in and lob her. It was one of numerous instances in which good intentions were undermined by imperfect execution.
As Raducanu struggled to get the measure of the heavy balls and coarse playing surface, the Belarusian conjured another perfectly judged lob in the next game, paving the way for a first break. Raducanu did her best to retrieve the deficit, bravely taking her returns on the rise as she had done at Flushing Meadows, but for once the magic failed to materialise, the ball repeatedly finding the net. By the time she lost her first set in 11 matches, Sasnovich once again sending the ball sailing over her head after she had failed to kill a short ball, Raducanu had made a dozen unforced errors.
Despite a concerted effort to reduce her error count at the start of the second set, Raducanu was broken in a lengthy opening game after facing down three break points. But having sealed the break with a sizzling crosscourt backhand, Sasnovich was given a taste of her own medicine in the next game, Raducanu sending a blazing two-handed winner down the line. The Belarusian double faulted on the next point, and a weak forehand then handed Raducanu her first break of the match.
Sasnovich’s play became increasingly ragged, and as her error count mounted so too did Raducanu’s hopes of playing the first three-set match of her fledgling WTA career. Yet still Raducanu seemed strangely stifled, her inner turmoil evident in the manner she greeted her mistakes with her head bowed or her hands on her hips. A 4-2 lead quickly evaporated, Sasnovich reeling off four successive games to set up a third-round meeting with Simona Halep.
“You’re going to have highs and you’re always going to have some lows, where you’re disappointed with how you performed,” said Raducanu. “Aliaksandra played an extremely great match. She has played; you could tell she’s more experienced than me. She went out there and executed her game plan better than I did. She deserved to win.”
There was better news for Leylah Fernandez, Raducanu’s victim in the US Open final. The Canadian defeated Alizé Cornet of France 6-2, 6-3 to set up an intriguing third-round meeting with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the French Open finalist and ninth seed, who ran out a 6-3, 6-1 winner over Madison Keys.
Also through is Andy Murray, who saw off Adrian Mannarino of France 6-2, 6-3 and will now face Carlos Alcaraz, the Spanish teenager who reached the last eight at the US Open.
“I don’t think I played amazing tennis, or the best tennis that I can play,” said Murray. “But I still won comfortably against a very good player, just by knuckling down on every point.”