Emma Raducanu picked up just the second French Open win of her career with a battling triumph over Wang Xinyu in Paris.<\/p>\n
In a contest that lasted close to three hours, the 22-year-old overcame a fierce challenge from her Chinese opponent to claim a 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 victory on the second day of action at Roland Garros.<\/p>\n
A high-quality start to the match saw Raducanu<\/a> and Wang trade early breaks, with the Brit failing to serve out the set for the first time at 5-4 up.<\/p>\n World No 41 Raducanu immediately regained the upper hand with a quick break and served out the opening set despite a lengthy on-court medical timeout.<\/p>\n Despite a strong end to the opener, the Brit\u2019s level dropped significantly at the start of set two and, perhaps affected by an apparent medical issue, quickly fell 5-1 down.<\/p>\n Wang twice failed to serve out the set but broke in the tenth game to force a decider, though Raducanu held her nerve in the deciding set to prevail.<\/p>\n \u201cI was playing Xinyu, who\u2019s a tough opponent \u2013 she can take the racket out of your hands,\u201d said Raducanu to TNT Sports<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really happy to have found a way. The opening rounds are never easy. I haven\u2019t been here in three years, so I think it was just a combination of a lot of things. Happy to have got through at least.<\/p>\n \u201cI can take positives in the fact that a lot of top champions, top players, they\u2019ve saved match points, really struggled, but they\u2019ve given themselves another opportunity in the draw, another match.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that is a big quality that is not necessarily easy to teach, where a shot is easier to kind of work on.<\/p>\n \u201cCharacter, and heart, and fight, that really came through today. I\u2019m really proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Victory for Raducanu was her first at the French Open since 2022, where she beat Linda Noskova in the opening round before a round-two defeat to Aliaksandra Sasnovich.<\/p>\n She pulled out of the event in 2023 due to a long-term injury absence, while she withdrew in 2024 to prioritise her grass-court campaign.<\/p>\n With no ranking points to defend, Raducanu came into the tournament in an advantageous position.<\/p>\n And, the 22-year-old has provisionally moved to 1,389 ranking points after her opening win, moving her up four places to world No 37 in the WTA Live Rankings.<\/p>\n That does not guarantee she will be inside the top 40 by the end of the tournament, though it does make it a distinct possibility.<\/p>\n Raducanu has not been inside the top 40 of the WTA Rankings since 2022, having fallen outside of that threshold after losing in the opening round of her US Open title defence.<\/p>\n However, it will not be easy for Raducanu to progress any further in the draw, with a blockbuster second-round match against three-time defending champion Iga Swiatek<\/a> up next.<\/p>\n Emma Navarro on wrong side of history after 6-0, 6-1 Roland Garros thrashing<\/a><\/p>\n Chris Evert identifies a big factor in Iga Swiatek\u2019s slide and gives a brutal aura verdict<\/a><\/p>\n Swiatek has not tasted defeat at the French Open since 2021, and a 6-3, 6-3 triumph over Rebecca Sramkova in round one was her 22nd consecutive victory at the tournament.<\/p>\n The Pole is the most-played opponent of Raducanu\u2019s career, though the head-to-head does not make for good reading from the Brit\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n Swiatek has won all four of their meetings and all eight sets contested between the two, including a 6-1, 6-0 thrashing when they faced off at the Australian Open back in January.<\/p>\n The round-two contest between the two is set to take place on Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very happy to have given myself another chance in the draw,\u201d added Raducanu.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt the noise around the match [versus Swiatek] even before our first rounds, so I\u2019m looking forward to going out there with not much pressure on me.<\/p>\n \u201cI think my game is in a pretty good place, so it\u2019s a good challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>:\u00a0Emma Raducanu reveals how Mark Petchey \u2018has helped me\u2019 and keen on \u2018having a conversation\u2019 with Andy Murray<\/a><\/p>\n The post Emma Raducanu ends three-year wait for French Open win with battling Round 1 triumph<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Emma Raducanu picked up just the second French Open win of her career with a battling triumph over Wang Xinyu in Paris. In a contest that lasted close to three hours, the 22-year-old overcame a fierce challenge from her Chinese opponent to claim a 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 victory on the second day of action at […]<\/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-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509","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=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}French Open News<\/h2>\n