Tennis: Raducanu’s disappointing return
The question on many people’s lips, as Emma Raducanu returned to competition last week, was
“How will she adjust to her new status as a grand slam champion?”, said Tumaini Carayol in The Guardian. To judge from her opening match at the
BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, it won’t be an easy ride. Facing Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus, ranked 100 in the world, the 17th seed slumped to a 6-2, 6-4 defeat with an error-strewn performance. This was a very different Raducanu to the one we saw in New York, said Simon Briggs in The Daily Telegraph. In the “cold, heavy conditions” of a night match in the Californian desert, she “seemed unable to express herself”: her movement was flat, her body language negative. It’s only natural she should feel the pressure: despite being a grand slam champion, she has “yet to land even a set in three appearances at WTA Tour level”. But she was philosophical in defeat, pointing out the need to “cut myself some slack”. Given such an “admirable sense of perspective”, she will quickly regroup, one feels.
Indian Wells has proved more successful for Britain’s other active grand slam champion, said Stuart Fraser in The Times. After brushing aside Italy’s Adrian Mannarino in the first round, Andy Murray next faced 18-year-old Carlos Alcaraz, another teenager who dazzled at Flushing Meadows. Few would have given 34-year-old Murray – with his metal hip – a chance, after he lost a gruelling 66-minute first set. Yet the world No. 121 fought back, even deploying an entirely new tactic at a key stage of the second set. Spotting that Alcaraz was standing metres behind the baseline to return serve, the Scot hit the first underarm serve of his career. Some in the crowd booed as the ball slowly arced over the net for an unconventional ace, but it proved a turning point: “Murray lost only four of the next 14 games.”