Emma Raducanu overcome the frustration of long delays related to weather conditions to beat Jaqueline Cristian when the Korea Open is opened.
The competition was scheduled for Tuesday but was postponed due to the rain, and more wet time then caused another substantial period on Wednesday. But Raducanu and Cristian were finally able to appear in the court and it was the British No. 1 who came out in the lead 6-3, 6-4 after a two-hour and two minutes fight.
Raducanu has controversially chosen to withdraw from the Great Britain team for the final of the Billie Jean King Cup this week in favor of taking a Joker in Seoul while it strives to increase its ranking in the last weeks of the season. Speaking in Shenzhen before the Great Britain match with Japan Thursday, the GB captain, Anne Keothavong, described the absence of a disappointing, but the 22-year-old young woman thinks that her decision has borne fruit if she can have a strong week.
In his first match since a unilateral defeat against Elena Rybakina in the third round of the US Open, Raducanu had to show his fighting spirit to see Cristian, who is classified eight places below 41 years.
The score of the first set did not tell the story, the nine games taking 70 minutes and Raducanu saving 11 of the 12 break points, fighting 3-1 with a series of five games in a row.
The Romanian struck many more winners, but Raducanu, which served six double faults, died again during the second set. She retaliated twice a breakdown to finally win the victory and set up a second round confrontation with the Wimbledon 2024 champion, Barbora Krejcikova.
“Super happy to have won today,” said Raducanu in his interview on the field. “It was not easy, I have the impression of having played this match in the last three days. To have continued after waiting, I am very satisfied with the way I went. Jeline is a really difficult opponent and I had excellent results.
It was a disappointing day for Cameron Norrie, who underwent a 6-7 shock (3), 6-4, 7-6 (2) to the Chengdu open against Zhou Yi, the classified Chinese Joker of the 304th, with the 20-year-old.
