A rampant Emma Raducanu finally ended her four-year wait for a match win at the US Open with a convincing opening-round win at Flushing Meadows.<\/p>\n
World No 35 Raducanu<\/a> faced little trouble against qualifier Ena Shibahara in the opening match of the tournament on Court Louis Armstrong, breezing towards a 6-1, 6-2 victory.<\/p>\n Raducanu had not won a match in New York since her stunning 2021 triumph at the tournament, becoming the first qualifier to ever win a Grand Slam title.<\/p>\n The Brit was beaten by Alize Cornet in the opening round in 2022, making her just the fourth defending US Open champion to lose in round one<\/a>, and was absent due to injury in 2023.<\/p>\n She then fell to fellow Grand Slam champion Sofia Kenin in 2024, though was handed a golden chance to end her disappointing run against world No 130 Shibahara<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n The Japanese had come through qualifying to reach the main draw and had made the second round at this event in 2024, though she struggled to settle from the outset.<\/p>\n Raducanu took advantage of her opponent\u2019s shaky start and faced little trouble in racing to a 5-0 lead, eventually closing out the opener in just 26 minutes after Shibahara held to avoid a bagel set.<\/p>\n She quickly moved into a 4-0 lead in the second set and overcame a late surge from her opponent to prevail in just 62 minutes, becoming the first match winner of this year\u2019s US Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n 2025 US Open: Points being defended by Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, Emma Raducanu & co<\/a><\/p>\n Victoria Mboko draws inspiration from Emma Raducanu and Bianca Andreescu<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cOf course, I\u2019m very, very pleased to have won that match,\u201d said Raducanu. \u201cIt\u2019s my first win here since 2021, so it\u2019s extra special.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst rounds are always difficult, especially at a Slam, there are nerves, and I\u2019m just so happy with the way I came through that.<\/p>\n \u201cPlaying Ena, she\u2019s really tricky, she hit so many balls on the baseline that I was not expecting to just dip. She obviously came through qualifying, and it\u2019s always you know, you [a qualifier]feel like you have a bit of an advantage, you\u2019re playing on the surface and know what it feels like.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just very pleased with how I managed myself, managed my game through that match.\u201d<\/p>\n Ranked 35th in the world heading into the tournament, Raducanu just missed out on a seeding in the main draw.<\/p>\n However, with limited points to defend in New York this summer, as well as the rest of the season, the 22-year-old is well-placed to crack the top 30 by the end of the season.<\/p>\n The Brit is provisionally up to world No 33 in the live rankings after her opening-round win, though most of her ranking rivals are still yet to take to court for their opening matches in New York.<\/p>\n Raducanu will return to action on Wednesday, against either 24th seed Veronika Kudermetova or qualifier Janice Tjen.<\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>: Will we finally get an Aryna Sabalenka vs Iga Swiatek Grand Slam final? US Open women\u2019s singles predictions<\/a><\/p>\n The post Dominant Emma Raducanu ends four-year wait for US Open match win<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A rampant Emma Raducanu finally ended her four-year wait for a match win at the US Open with a convincing opening-round win at Flushing Meadows. World No 35 Raducanu faced little trouble against qualifier Ena Shibahara in the opening match of the tournament on Court Louis Armstrong, breezing towards a 6-1, 6-2 victory. Raducanu had […]<\/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-919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919","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=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}US Open News<\/h2>\n