Emma Raducanu kickstarted her Asian swing with a gritty straight-sets win over Jaqueline Cristian at the Korea Open, though things aren’t set to get any easier for the former US Open champion.
World No 33 Raducanu and Cristian finally made it onto court at the WTA 500 event on Wednesday night local time, with the match again pushed back in the order of play due to rain — having previously been scheduled to take to court on Tuesday.
And, it was the British star who sealed victory, beating world No 41 Cristian 6-3, 6-4 to book her place in the second round of the Korea Open for the second straight year.
However, it was far from easy for Raducanu, with the match taking over two hours to complete inside the Seoul Olympic Park Tennis Center.
Raducanu faced a staggering 12 break points in the opening set and, though she saved 11 of them, found herself an early break down and had to rally from an early break down to claim an hour-long opening set.
The second set was also not easy but was marginally more straightforward, the world No 33 and Cristian trading early breaks before Raducanu sealed the decisive break in the ninth game, successfully serving out the match after two hours and two minutes.
Raducanu has quarter-final points to defend in Seoul and, while she has not defended all of those points quite yet, she has received a significant boost in the WTA Live Rankings.
The 22-year-old is provisionally up one place to world No 32 in the live rankings, moving ahead of Wang Xinyu — who is not in action on the WTA Tour this week.
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Should Raducanu successfully reach the quarter-final for a second consecutive year, she would remain at world No 32 in the WTA Live Rankings, though she would push into the top 30 if she were to progress any further.
Cracking the top 32 would be significant for Raducanu ahead of 2026, with the Brit looking to be seeded at the Australian Open next January.
However, she faces an incredibly tough test in her next Korea Open match, with Barbora Krejcikova awaiting in the second round.
A two-time Grand Slam champion and world No 2 at the very peak of her powers, Krejcikova has struggled with injury throughout 2025.
However, she has been in resurgent form this summer, with the Czech back inside the top 40 of the WTA Rankings after reaching the last eight of the US Open earlier this month.
Krejcikova was also in impressive form in her opening-round match of the Korea Open on Wednesday, dropping just three games against Tatiana Prozorova to progress.
This will be the first meeting between the two Grand Slam winners, and the winner could then go on to face top seed Iga Swiatek in the last eight.
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