British tennis player has Emma Raducanu had a fine week as she closes in on a second career title.
If Raducanu wins the Transylvania Open, she can face critics who place so much emphasis on that 2021 US Open triumph.
She stormed through to the final on Friday after beating world No. 91 Oleksandra Oliynykova 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 in a grueling Transylvania Open semifinal.
Raducanu, 23, led 3-1 in the second set before Oliynykova leveled the match with a run of five straight games. The Briton, seeded 1, had to overturn a break deficit from 2-1 in the decider to seal victory in 2 hours and 48 minutes.
“What an incredible match,” Raducanu said in her on-court interview. “All props to my opponent. Oli, she played incredible, she makes it so tricky to put any ball past her. You know, you think it’s past her and then the ball is on your baseline or on your sideline, so it’s just so difficult. Most proud of how I competed, how I came back in the third set, how I managed the match.”
Even when this week began, the 2021 US Open champion was earmarked as the outstanding favorite to claim the title in Transylvania.
“I’m very happy with my performance today. I played a great match from the beginning,” the 23-year-old said after a commanding 6-0 6-4 win over Poland’s Maja Chwalinska.
“As always there’s some moments of adversity you have to overcome and I did that well in the second set, so I am really proud of that.”
The second seed, Jaqueline Cristian, lost in the Round of 16. Then Anastasia Potapova, who had just beaten Raducanu in Melbourne, was dumped out too.
The British number one is just two wins away from a second WTA tour-level title, and will probably never get a better chance at adding to her sole US Open triumph from five years ago.
This run in Romania to that stage marked just her fifth, with her most recent one coming in Washington last summer.
Despite her worldwide status, having been shot into the limelight ever since her US Open title in 2021, Raducanu has struggled to live up to expectations.
Battling with a long run of injuries, and the years that followed the greatest moment of her career have been far from enjoyable.
However, former tennis star Boris Becker has been left stunned. Posting on X, Becker reacted with just two words: “That’s it?”
Top seed Raducanu has now won her first three matches since splitting with coach Francis Roig after a second-round exit at January’s Australian Open.
