November 09, (THEWILL) – Emma Raducanu was knocked out of the Linz Open in Austria after a long 6-1 6-7(0) 7-5 loss to Xinyu Wang. Raducanu, the US Open champion, was broken three times in the first set but came back to win the second on a tiebreak.
In the third set, break-point opportunities were scarce, but Wang capitalised on two that came her way and won in two hours and 36 minutes.
Raducanu was the top seed going into the match, but Wang was the one who made all of the early runs in Linz. In the first set, the world number 106 created eight break point opportunities, winning the third, fifth, and seventh games on Raducanu’s serve to win the set 6-1.
Raducanu had failed to put any pressure on her opponent’s service in the first set, but she broke in the first game of the second to suggest a comeback.
However, the British player was broken right away and had to save two break points in her next service game to avoid falling behind 3-1.
Raducanu eventually held and then broke Wang, but after taking a 4-2 lead, she lost the eighth game of the set on her own serve, allowing Wang to reclaim the advantage. Raducanu had to serve twice to stay in the match, which she did to force a 7-0 tiebreak.
The third set was played on serve until the ninth game, when Wang converted the set’s first break point opportunity. Wang had two chances to serve out the match, but she missed both of them. After being broken, she won the next game on Raducanu’s serve to complete the victory.
Alison Riske defeated Alize Cornet 6-4 6-4, and will face Wang in the quarterfinals.
Simona Halep, the former world number one, advanced to the quarterfinals by defeating Aliaksandra Sasnovich 7-5 6-3 in Linz on Tuesday.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
