Emma Raducanu suffers heavy first-round loss in Madrid to Maria Lourdes Carle, Naomi Osaka makes winning start
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Updated 24/04/2024 at 19:04 GMT
Emma Raducanu sunk to a first-round defeat at the Madrid Open to world No. 82 Maria Lourdes Carle. The 21-year-old Brit couldn't locate the fluency she has shown of late as she succumbed to an error-strewn loss, after which she said she was "exhausted". Meanwhile, Naomi Osaka put in a tenacious display in the Spanish capital during a convincing 6-4 6-1 win over Belgian Greet Minnen.
Sabalenka hoping to harness ‘good energy’ in Madrid to retain title
Emma Raducanu sunk to a first-round loss at the Madrid Open, as the Brit’s recent good form eluded her in a straight-sets 6-2 6-2 loss to world No. 82 Marie Lourdes Carle.
Raducanu has landed big wins in recent weeks, beating Caroline Garcia to lead Great Britain to the Billie Jean King Cup finals, and then reaching the quarter-finals in Stuttgart last week where she gave as good as she got in defeat to world No. 1 Iga Swiatek.
But she admitted her efforts across the two clay events had taken their toll in Madrid.
“I think from the performance today it was very clear that mentally and emotionally I was exhausted,” she said.
“I was trying to push through. I was pushing through Stuttgart and was just unable to push through today. So yeah, it’s a shame that I was feeling so good on the court and today happened, but I guess this sport is just pretty brutal.”
Raducanu was broken to love in the first game of the match amid a run of losing all of the first seven points.
She went 3-0 down before finally getting on the board, but slipped to 5-1 back as her Argentinian opponent – fresh from a WTA 125 title earlier this month at La Bisbal d'Emporda – used her clay-court form to move her opponent around and dominate the exchanges.
Raducanu couldn’t make any further inroads as she lost the set 6-2 with a whopping 19 unforced errors to her name, and left the court with some contemplating to do.
Regrettably for the 2021 US Open champion, things got no brighter at the start of the second as she was broken in the first game after going long.
A rare glimmer of hope came in the form of an immediate break back, but the errors continued as Carle struck for 2-1 to make it three breaks in a row.
That soon became 4-1 as the 21-year-old Brit fired a wayward return, as the encounter rapidly slipped away from her.
In a last-gasp bid to turn things around, Raducanu brought up five break points in the next but saw them all saved as Carle moved one away from victory.
Raducanu raced through for a hold to reduce the arrears to 5-2, but Carle was all business in the last as she brought up one of the best wins of her career.
OSaka breezes through
Naomi Osaka coasted into the second round of the Madrid Open with a 6-4 6-1 win over Belgian Greet Minnen.
Osaka had managed just eight wins from 15 matches after returning to tennis in January following an extended break from the sport.
But she showed few signs of rust in Spain with a convincing win over Greet, who struggled to match her opponent's intensity.
After coasting through the first two games, Osaka had her first chance to break the Minnen serve. She clawed her way back from 0-40 to earn a break point, but Minnen swatted away the first with a forehand winner. Osaka came back for a second, but a big serve got the Belgian out of trouble to keep things level at two games apiece.
Osaka raced through her service games and kept pushing her opponent, forcing Minnen to save another break point to keep her at bay.
But with Osaka within one game of the first set at 5-4, a wonderful backhand return and forehand winner saw the Japanese finally break Minnen for the first set.
At the top of the second set, Osaka attacked Minnen's serve and forced another break point. Minnen saved the first as Osaka struck the net, but the former world No. 1 came back for another, this time winning it and taking the early break of serve with a backhand winner.
The Belgian tried to battle back and forced her first break point of the match with a big backhand winner, but followed that up with a poor slice that helped Osaka back to deuce, before the four-time Grand Slam champion managed to close out the game.
Osaka was unrelenting in her pursuit of a spot in the second round and forced three break points in the fourth game of the second set. Minnen brilliantly saved three, but a poor second serve gave Osaka a fourth, the Japanese star making no mistake this time for a 4-0 lead.
Minnen eventually stopped the rot and swerved a bagel with a big serve, but Osaka raced through her final service game to take the match.
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