WHAT HAPPENED: A last-minute adjustment was no problem for Emma Raducanu at the US Open on Tuesday.
Initially placed to face No. 13 seed Jennifer Brady out of qualifying, the British teen walked out on Court 17 against Swiss lucky loser Stefanie Voegele, following Brady's pre-tournament withdrawal due to injury. Based on form, the once-underdog was now the favorite, and Raducanu largely played like it: hitting 24 winners and breaking serve five times, she scored a 6-2, 6-3 victory in 78 minutes.
"I was very up for my match against Brady. We were [scheduled to be] on Armstrong, and I was really looking forward to playing on such a big stage again," Raducanu said after the match. "I heard I was playing Voegele, and I had to prep last minute, but I was just focused on my game and what I could control. I think I served well today, which helped me settle into the match. I got a few cheap points on my serve, I felt very comfortable out there and the crowd were very welcoming."
Despite the straightforward scoreline, the match was full of little challenges that the 18-year-old overcame admirably. Down a break in each set early at 2-1, she broke back immediately to level, and later needed seven match points to seal victory. A titanic final game on Raducanu's serve went six deuces, and Voegele also had one chance to level at 5-5.
"I got broken early in both sets, and to have [the fans] there just backing me, it helped me through a lot of tough times. Especially at the end when I was trying to close out the match, they were really getting behind me. At one point, I was just laughing because I couldn't believe what was going on and the points I was playing, so I thought I'd just have fun with them. They seemed to enjoy the tennis that was going on.
"It's obviously a very difficult thing to serve out your first US Open main draw win, so that lack of experience probably showed a bit. My right arm was feeling a bit heavy in the last few games, but I'm just happy to have gotten over the line. Overall, I thought I played a very good match and a high level. Voegele, she was fighting the whole way through. She's a great player with a lot of experience, so I had to play well and fight very hard to beat her."
After thrilling her home country last month with a run to the Round of 16 at Wimbledon as a wild card, Raducanu is now off and running in her US Open debut. She hasn't dropped a set in four matches so far.
WHAT IT MEANS: Raducanu advances to face China's Zhang Shuai in a rematch from the first week of the US Open Series. Raducanu was a wild card to the WTA 500 event in San Jose on the back of her Wimbledon heroics and was beaten in the opening round there by Zhang, 6-3, 6-2.
"I know Zhang and we speak quite a lot whenever we see each other in Mandarin. She's a very nice girl and we get on really well. She's a great player," Raducanu said. "We played in San Jose and it was my first tournament on the hard courts here. She outplayed me that day, so I'm going into this next match with the learnings that I took away from the last one, and hopefully it's going to be a good rematch. I'm looking forward to it, and I feel like I've come quite far with my game since we last played.
"Playing at this level, week in and week out, you're going to just adapt. It's sort of natural selection. If you don't, you're going to lose. I've come quite far in maintaining the consistency of the high level and the longer points. I think, as the weeks have gone on, and I've played more and more matches, I feel very confident in my game and the strikes and taking the game to the opponent rather than letting it happen. I'm being more proactive."
MATCH POINT: With Brady's pre-tournament withdrawal, the highest seed in Ashleigh Barty's possible path to the quarterfinals is No. 22 seed Karolina Muchova, a two-time Wimbledon quarterfinalist. But Raducanu has been playing well above her world ranking of No. 150 over the last two months, and should not be discounted as a possible Round 4 foe for the top seed.
