Emma Raducanu produced one of her most confident performances of 2025 as she started her Miami Open campaign with a much-needed win on Thursday.<\/p>\n
World No 60 Raducanu<\/a> was a significant favourite on paper against world No 188 Sayaka Ishii, who had received a wildcard into the main draw.<\/p>\n And the Brit matched expectations in an impressive display, losing serve just once across a confident 6-2, 6-1 victory inside the Hard Rock Stadium.<\/p>\n It is just a fourth win of 2025 for the 22-year-old, who was beaten in the opening round of Indian Wells two weeks ago, and marks her first victory since her stalking ordeal at the Dubai Tennis Championships.<\/p>\n It is also Raducanu\u2019s first-ever main draw match win in Miami, having lost her opening match in both 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very pleased to have got through that,\u201d said Raducanu in her on-court interview.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not an easy first round, playing someone a bit younger and dangerous, and in good form, so I\u2019m really proud of how I competed today.<\/p>\n \u201cIt hasn\u2019t been easy for me coming into this but I think I put out a really good performance.<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t won a match here yet actually in my professional career [until now] but I have great memories from playing junior Orange Bowl \u2013 I did pretty well two times.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit different now and I\u2019m just happy to have scored a win in the professional tournament too.\u201d<\/p>\n Due to players provisionally falling in the WTA Live Rankings, Raducanu was already projected to move up two spots to world No 58 in the rankings.<\/p>\n However, victory over Ishii has provisionally moved her back to world No 55 as things stand, level on points with projected world No 56 Polina Kudermetova.<\/p>\n A second-round win could potentially move her back to world No 53 and in touching distance of a return to the world\u2019s top 50.<\/p>\n Iga Swiatek gets advice from Martina Navratilova after recent frustrations<\/a><\/p>\n Miami Open WTA Predictions: Gauff & Swiatek respond, Raducanu struggles, Andreeva & Sabalenka look ahead<\/a><\/p>\n But that is by no means a given for the former world No 10, who now faces eighth seed \u2013 and current No 10 \u2013 Emma Navarro<\/a> in the next round.<\/p>\n It will be Navarro\u2019s first match of the tournament, with all seeds receiving an opening-round bye at the WTA 1000 event, and it will be the first career meeting between the two.<\/p>\n Raducanu added: \u201cIt\u2019s going to be an extremely challenging match.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a match where she\u2019s probably in better form, so I think I can just go out and try and express myself, compete for every point.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s a great person. I think on the tour, it\u2019s one of those people you would probably warm to, and say hi \u2013 it\u2019s going to be a double Emma!\u201d<\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>:\u00a0WTA Rankings: How many points are Sabalenka, Swiatek, Gauff, Andreeva, Raducanu defending in Miami?<\/a><\/p>\n The post Emma Raducanu books blockbuster Miami Open clash after emphatic opening win<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Emma Raducanu produced one of her most confident performances of 2025 as she started her Miami Open campaign with a much-needed win on Thursday. World No 60 Raducanu was a significant favourite on paper against world No 188 Sayaka Ishii, who had received a wildcard into the main draw. And the Brit matched expectations in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA Tour News<\/h2>\n