Having scaled the summit, Emma Raducanu is belatedly laying the foundations. Such has been the vertiginous speed of the British teenager’s ascent that, before her arrival at the Transylvania Open, Raducanu had never previously won a tour-level contest. Neither had she played an indoor match or a three-setter at a WTA event. Now she has done all three, overcoming the spirited resistace of Slovenia’s Polona Hercog 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 to claim her first victory since the improbable run to the US Open title that thrust her into the global spotlight.
Ordinarily, a first-round win for a reigning grand slam champion over a player ranked 124th in the world would be nothing to write home about. Yet this was a significant moment for Raducanu, a building block in the career of a young woman who, in professional terms, had shown she could run well before demonstrating the ability to walk. Raducanu had preached the mantra of patience in advance of her first appearance in her father’s homeland, rightly pointing out that she is still learning and will need time to find her game. Her first-round loss to Shelby Rogers at Indian Wells had shown as much, and in Hercog she faced an opponent of comparable experience and competitive nous.
Yet for someone focused on the long-term, Raducanu started the match in an awfully big hurry, opening up a 4-1 lead before Hercog rattled off five successive games to take the first set. It required an almighty effort from Raducanu to arrest her opponent’s momentum and turn the tide back in her favour, but a courageous second-set fightback paved the way for a performance of growing authority. After an explosive start, Raducanu was never at her best, but what she lacked in inspiration, the third seed made up for with endeavour and resilience.
“It feels like a huge win, to be honest,” said Raducanu, who will face local favourite Ana Bogdan in round two. “It’s actually my first WTA Tour win, which makes me very, very happy. I think the key was to just try and stay mentally composed. I knew I wasn’t playing very well, so I just needed to keep going one point at a time. I thought that if I kept giving myself the chance by holding serve, then maybe my tennis would improve and fall into place a bit better, and it did.
“I’m really proud of myself for how I fought today. All of the matches I’m playing, I’m just gaining in experience. I feel like that one today definitely counts a huge part to that. Because when you’re not playing very well, you know you can do better and just pull it through. Dropping the first set, it hasn’t happened to me very often so fast. I think that I learned to just try and dig in and I can turn matches around.”
It looked unlikely at first that Raducanu would be required to show such fortitude. Returning with depth and precision, the 18-year-old dominated the early exchanges, forcing Hercog deep behind the baseline as she swept the ball from side to side in a manner redolent of her form in New York. She broke in the second game, finally breaking the Slovenian’s stubborn resistance on her sixth break point, and recovered brilliantly from 0-30 down in the fifth game, drilling winners off both sides to quell the danger.
Hercog, however, an experienced campaigner who has been ranked as high as 35th in the world, was not about to go away. In the seventh game, Raducanu gifted the Slovenian a route back into the match, surrendering her serve to love with three errant groundstrokes and a double fault, and from there Hercog grew in confidence. Serving with authority, throwing extra heat from the back of the court and drawing Raducanu out of her comfort zone with short angles and drop shots, the 30-year-old rattled off the next four games to take the set.
Hercog continued in the same aggressive vein, and although Raducanu broke her momentum with a composed hold at the start of the second set, the Slovenian was in no mood to buckle. She staved off three break points in the fourth game, refusing to yield in the face of some inspired returning from Raducanu, and showed similar resilience four games later when she was pulled back to deuce after leading 40-0.
She was not the only one living dangerously. At 4-4, Raducanu saved a break point with a bold cross-court backhand. She survived another at 5-5, this time deploying a low-bouncing slice off the same wing that the flailing Hercog would have struggled to dig up with a trowel. Having held, Raducanu cut an exasperated figure when two set points came and went in the next game. But when Hercog finally sent a forehand long to surrender her serve, and with it the set, she responded with a roar and a clenched fist. The Slovenian would win just one more game.
“Polona’s a great opponent, and she’s really experienced, so I really had to fight hard to pull that one through,” said Raducanu, who will face local favourite Ana Bogdan in round two. “I thought that by the end of the third set, I was playing some better tennis, and the most important thing was I earned another opportunity to go and play better in my next round.”
There was further good news for British tennis at the Vienna Open, where Cameron Norrie marked his first competitive outing since claiming the title in Indian Wells with a 7-6 (7-4), 6-1 win over Marton Fucsovics of Hungary. Norrie, who recovered from 4-1 down in the opening set, will face Felix Auger-Aliassime, the sixth seed, in the second round.
Top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas also progressed, although not without recovering from 6-3 down in the first-set tiebreak against Grigor Dimitrov. “Grigor is a tough competitor and the level of tennis was really high today, said Tsitsipas following his 7-6 (8-6), 6-4 win. “We both competed at our highest [level].”
“It’s important to aim for offensive tennis,” added the Greek, who will play Frances Tiafoe next. “The court speed is fast here and you have certain expectations of yourself. I came really close to those expectations today.”