Emma Raducanu: Briton shrugs off foot injury to beat China’s Yue Yuan and make Korea Open quarter-finals
Emma Raducanu reached last eight in Seoul live on Sky Sports Tennis after converting seventh of her match points vs China’s Yue Yuan; watch all ATP and WTA action on Sky Sports Tennis and Sky Sports+ which is integrated into Sky TV, streaming service NOW and Sky Sports app
Speaking about her performance, Raducanu said in her on-court interview: “I think my key to success today is trying to let go of any frustration that happened.
“Closing out the match I had a lot of match points and couldn’t convert. [It was about] just staying focused and breaking in that last game.”
After a nervy opening hold through deuce, Raducanu settled to earn the first break of the contest and move 2-1 ahead courtesy of some superb baseline play.
Yet Yuan showed guts to break straight back and then dug in to save break points for key holds to move 3-2 and then 4-3 up.
The next time Raducanu had the chance to break, she took it with aplomb via a crosscourt backhand winner, though, holding serve thereafter to claim the opening set 6-4 after medical treatment.
The Brit kicked on to break Yuan in the first game of the second set, holding and then breaking her Chinese opponent again for a commanding 3-0 advantage.
Yuan did break Raducanu back once, but the latter produced a tough hold through deuce to get to 4-2 and then broke Yuan again for 5-2, bringing up the chance to serve for the match.
Raducanu
Image: Raducanu had to maintain focus in a clash that often looked like it might slip away from her
Having failed to take four match points, Raducanu then had to save two break points before bringing up a fifth match point. Yuan hit a superb winner to avert it, though.
A third break point in the game then had to be saved by a Raducanu ace, bringing the game to a seventh deuce, only for a double fault to open the door for Yuan to finally break and end the game, crushing a forehand winner.
Raducanu was not to be denied, however, breaking Yuan to 15 in the Chinese player’s next service game to clinch her quarter-final place via her seventh match point opportunity.
World No 13 Kasatkina defeated American Hailey Baptiste 6-4 6-2 to set up a showdown with Raducanu on Friday with a spot in the semi-finals up for grabs – live on Sky Sports Tennis from 6am.
Raducanu working on her service technique
Raducanu’s serves helped her reach a fifth WTA quarter-final this year.
She told the WTA website afterwards: “If you watch my serve over the past few months, since the clay season it’s gone through a lot of iterations in terms of swing.
“In general, if you play a lot of tournaments, things move out of place without you really realising, and then it’s harder to get the natural feeling back.
“We’ve been working hard the last week looking at the swing, and which swing suits me best. It’s been pretty big changes, it’s not like we’re just changing the ball placement.
“Me and my coach decided we were going to take a risk and we were going to tweak things. We know it might not pay off short term.
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