Faced with a sometimes-inspired rival that rained down winners for most of an hour, after a positive start, Emma Raducanu was unable to survive a half-match drop in intensity and left the track and outside the French Open. . After just over two hours on the court, Belarussian Aliaksandra Sasnovich emerged as the clear winner, beating Raducanu 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 in the second round at Roland Garros.
Defeating the world number 47 means that after five months of the season, Raducanu is on the turf season with just two wins in the top 50 this year, an indication that the top-ranked players are slowly starting to point out the weaknesses of your game. .
Sasnovich is a pedigree player, a former top 30 player who took Belarus to the final of the Billie Jean King Cup in 2017. After falling in the top 100, she has recovered well this year, halving its classification to its current place in No. 47.
Unlike the wet, miserable, and slow conditions of Raducanu’s three-set first-round win over Linda Noskova, the pair arrived at the Suzanne Lenglen track to clear the blue sky and dry heat, meaning the ball flew through the air and rewarded those who had the nerve to attack. . At the beginning of the match, that player was Sasnovich, who set the tone for the rallies against an extremely limited Raducanu, who was particularly passive and ineffective with his right.
The Belarusian, however, took a while to realize how tempting Raducanu’s right was and continuously aimed at Raducanu’s setback, playing it at a slow pace. As Raducanu began to unleash slowly with his strength, he broke the serve 3-2 after a spectacular return match, bowing out to two consecutive winners of brilliant backhands on the cross before getting the break. with a winning straight along the line. He browsed through his remaining service sets to catch the set.
After a brief tussle with the defender, Raducanu finally tucked the ball home. When her opponent’s ball speed dropped and she struggled with her service, Sasnovich took control of the bottom line from the second set. At the end of the set, Sasnovich was playing with all the returns and burying the winners at will.
Since Sasnovich finished the second set with an absurdity of 19 winners and only four unforced errors, the question that remained was whether Raducanu could recover to push it out of his rhythm. He had a chance, generating five break points during a long game and you have 1-1 while playing his most authoritative tennis of the set.
But as the decisive set progressed, Sasnovich brutally hunted down his right when it mattered. Raducanu made a right-footed shot to give up the first break with the 3-1 and throughout the set, Sasnovich devoured the passive turn of that side. In the end, Raducanu’s positive clay court season ended with two weak sets.