Emma Raducanu begins final Wimbledon prep in perfect fashion

EASTBOURNE — Emma Raducanu triumphed in the battle of the US Open champions as she saw off 2017 winner at Flushing Meadows Sloane Stephens, winning 6-4, 6-0 in Eastbourne.

Raducanu, the 2021 US Open champion, will now face another American Jessica Pegula in the second round in her final tournament before Wimbledon starts on 1 July.

The British No 5 won eight games in a row to complete victory of the match as Stephens racked up a seventh defeat in her last eight matches.

And that was despite the American world No 48 earning the first break of the match in a ding-dong first set, but Raducanu’s 24 winners across the 76 minutes were too much for Stephens to handle.

“It’s difficult because Sloane is super-athletic and in the first set especially she was making a lot of balls and counter-punching really well,” said Raducanu after a win that will take her back into the world’s top 150.

“It took a lot to try and hit through her but I managed to figure it out in the second set.”

The last time this two met, Raducanu was riding the high of US Open glory, Stephens her first opponent at a grand slam since lifting the trophy in New York.

Raducanu had won the first set of that match to love and Stephens did once again look nervy early on, failing to top 95 miles an hour on first serve and hitting the ball tentatively it seemed.

But the 2017 US Open champion was the one who eventually broke first, converting her third break point in the fifth game as Raducanu’s concentration was seemingly interrupted first by a nasty slip, and then by a decision by Marija Cicak to overrule a winner she had hit and force the point to be replayed.

The break though was immediately returned and in fact triggered four breaks of serve in a row between 2-2 and 4-4 in the first set.

Raducanu looks as though she would hand Stephens the fifth in a row when she double-faulted to give up two break points, but the British star battled impressively, saving them with a fine drop shot and then a curving ace. It took another six points to hold serve but the fist pump and scream from Raducanu reflected its importance, and Stephens would not win another game in the match.

The 31-year-old is no novice on the grass, having reached the quarter-finals of Wimbledon before and having won 15 rounds there in total, but she has only played Eastbourne once since 2015 and the conditions, which Raducanu pointed out afterwards are quite unusual on Centre Court here, seemed to get the better of her – as did her opponent’s clean hitting.