Emma Raducanu’s recurring problem strikes again as she blows huge rankings chance
For large portions of her match against Barbora Krejcikova at the Korea Open, Emma Raducanu looked every inch the contender to claim a win that would have fired her back towards the top 30 of the WTA Rankings.
Raducanu was on the brink of victory as she led by a set and 5-2 and then had three match points in the tie-break that preceded a one-sided third set that continued a worrying trend for the British player.
A quarter-final clash with Iga Swiatek will now be the prize for Krejcikova after her 4-6, 7-6(10), 6-1 victory, with Raducanu’s demise in that decisive set will be a defining memory of this match.
On a day when Great Britain’s Billie Jean King Cup were beating Japan to seal their passage to the semi-final of that competition, Raducanu’s decision to opt out of playing for her country was on trial as she looked to build her ranking points total in Korea.
For over two hours, Raducanu appeared to be on her way to victory, with Krejcikova firing down a host of double faults to boost Raducanu’s hopes and yet once the tide turned and Krejcikova won the second set, Raducanu’s demise was complete.
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She battled at the start of the third set for a couple of games, but the white flag was hoisted by the 22-year-old long before the final ball was struck and that will be a concern for the team around the world No 33.
This is not the first time we have seen Raducanu fall away in a match when she has had chances to win, with her collapse against Aryna Sabalenka at Wimbledon in July another example of an occasion when she allowed momentum to slip and had no answer as she was asked to fight back.
It’s not that Raducanu doesn’t have a fighting spirit to overcome disappointment when the momentum turns against her, but she does appear to have lulls in matches when she allows them to get away from her.
She can look lost at times on court and when she gets into that negative mindset, matches can slip away from her too quickly.
We saw that in her thumping defeats against Iga Swiatek at the Australian Open and Frnech Open and also when she was heavily beaten by Elena Rybakina at the US Open.
When Raducanu’s Plan A stops giving her the results she needs, it seems she lacks a back-up plan to try and change the course of a contest and that may be an area she will look to work on with her new coach Francisco Roig.
There will be positives to take from this performance against Krejcikova, as she should have beaten a player who has been in good form over the last few weeks, but the end result left plenty of questions for the Brit as she heads off to next week’s WTA 1000 China Open event looking to string a few wins together.
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