Emma Raducanu will be hoping to turn her luck around at next week’s Wuhan Open, after blowing multiple match points in her last two losses. The British No. 1 had three match points against Jessica Pegula in Beijing earlier this week, but she couldn’t take them and suffered a bruising 3-6 7-6(9) 6-0 defeat.
Raducanu also collapsed after squandering three match points against Barbora Krejcikova at the Korea Open just a few days earlier. Coming into the WTA 1000 in Wuhan, the world No. 32 confessed that it had been hard to get her head around the crushing defeats.
Ahead of her tournament debut at the Wuhan Open, Raducanu said: “Yeah, I think it was hard for me.
“The last two matches that I lost, I had match points in both. And it’s not something that’s really happened to me before and then to happen twice in a week was pretty new to get my head around.”
Raducanu faded away when she failed to take her match-point chances in the second set tiebreak against Pegula in Beijing. She won only 12 points in the quick final set, but still felt more optimistic than she did in Seoul a few days earlier.
“I think the second match I found it easier to get over than the first because I know I was playing some better tennis and just improving with my level,” the 22-year-old explained.
“I feel like I didn’t take too long to kind of dwell on it and just got straight back to work and trying to get ready as best as possible for this week.”
Raducanu still showed plenty of improvements in the first two sets of her match against Pegula, and she’s focusing on the positives after suffering her second defeat to the American this season.
She added: “I would say they’re all different; different styles of play. I think I was doing things that I wasn’t really doing in the first part of the year. I think I was also dealing with Jessie’s ball pretty well compared to when we played in Miami.
“I felt just a lot more confident and composed when I was playing her this time round, which was good for me. And I do feel like I’m improving and making progress. I still see the differences in where I want to go but I know I’m doing good work day to day to try and get there.”
One clear improvement Raducanu has made is on the serve. The 2021 US Open champion has been working on the shot since she linked back up with Mark Petchey earlier this year, and continued her efforts after hiring Francisco Roig as her new coach over the summer.
She said: “I think my serving has been helping me out in some moments, in matches and the first round as well when I played Cristina [Bucsa].
“You know, she’s also a player who’s won a lot of matches, and I think just being able to get a free point here and there on the serve makes a big difference. And yeah, I’m happy with just the progress that I’m making.”
Raducanu may well get a chance to earn some revenge over Pegula next week in Wuhan. The Brit will face Ann Li in her opening match, and either No. 9 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova or Canadian Open champion Victoria Mboko in the second round, while Pegula is a possible third-round opponent.
