The Francisco Roig era of Emma Raducanu’s career began with a positive performance as the 30th seed defeated Olga Danilovic of Serbia 6-3, 6-2 on a sweltering day in the second round at the Cincinnati Open.
Raducanu’s recent progress has been driven by her reliability against inferior opponents and she is now 19-4 against lower-ranked players over the past year.
Having spent much of the past four years struggling to string together wins, she is now as match-tough as she has ever been.
Photo: EPA
“You always feel a little bit of nerves before the first round, but I think that overall, I’m approaching everything in a lot more calm way, mature, and I think I’m trusting a lot more the work I’m doing behind the scenes,” she said.
“I know I’m putting a lot of hours in, and it takes some of the pressure off of the results,” she added.
A far greater test awaits Raducanu in round three, where she is to face world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka after the Belarusian defeated Marketa Vondrousova 7-5, 6-1 on Saturday night.
Photo: EPA
Raducanu was supported from the crowd by former Rafael Nadal coach Roig, who consistently offered tactical advice from his position next to the baseline. Although their partnership is still less than a week old, she said Roig has already made a positive difference to her game.
“I think the way I’m playing, the movements of my shot, improving the quality of my shot,” she said.
“There were four or five points where I did something that we were working on, and it’s always really satisfying and rewarding when you hit a shot and you’ve worked on it in practice. So I think I’m going to improve a lot, hopefully doing the work day in, day out,” she added.
After their first conversations about her game, Raducanu and Roig quickly agreed that the main focus of their work is improving her overall level.
“It’s just, like, the level needs to be better. In a good way, not in a negative way. It’s just calling it how it is, and I’m very like that. I’m very kind of factual and I don’t necessarily like fluffing something up.” she said.
“I think that’s where we get on really well and we understand each other,” she added.
“Just in general, everything is like: ‘We need to improve. We need to get every shot better,’ and that’s exciting, because I feel like there’s a lot of potential to go and I don’t think I’m near it,” the British No. 1 said.
During her one previous appearance in Cincinnati two years ago, where she dismantled Serena Williams in the final month of her career and Victoria Azarenka in consecutive matches, Raducanu showed that the faster courts here suit her well.
However, this time she had the oppressive heat to deal with. The temperature on Champions Court rose to 30°C with considerable humidity.
One year after missing most of the North American swing, including the Cincinnati Open, before her first-round loss at Flushing Meadows, Raducanu is in quite a different position.
Her run on the hard courts began with two positive showings, reaching the semi-finals of the WTA 500 event in Washington before winning two matches last week in Montreal.
Now she would have another opportunity to test her level against one of the world’s best.
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