![]() She notched up seven double faults in total, allowing herself to be broken easily, and the match looked completely unsalvageable. She looked visibly frustrated at that point, but once Kostyuk had wrapped up the opener within 30 minutes, Raducanu’s shoulders slumped and the energy was sapped from her racket. Raducanu’s double faults were an issue – including two in her last service game of the first set, which saw her broken for the second time. When a break-back point for Raducanu came and went in the sixth game, her opportunity evaporated. But it was a brief glimmer of her usual level. ![]() She was sending forehands two feet past the baseline, and finding the net too many times on her usually reliable backhand.ĭuring the middle portion of the first set, she started to correct that, hitting some winners and coping well with Kostyuk’s weapon serve. Kostyuk immediately broke Raducanu’s serve in the first game and the Briton struggled to find her range. And on Friday night she looked very much the junior compared to 19-year-old Kostyuk, who showed experience and was ruthless while Raducanu faded fast. During juniors, Raducanu always needed to play catch up against players like Kostyuk, because of the Ukrainian’s full-time commitment to the sport from a much earlier age. “She remembered it and I thought: ‘I have to go with it.’ ”Īs well as Kostyuk played, Raducanu was way off her best. “When I read her comments about our last match, it gave me some strength,” Kostyuk said. She said Raducanu’s negative memories of facing her had motivated the victory. I didn’t deserve to win, so I didn’t win. We both have come such a long way, that it’s just a completely different match now. “She’s a good opponent, regardless of what happened. Raducanu insisted afterwards that previous results did not play on her mind. The major title Raducanu won just last month did little to scare Kostyuk off, and she stormed to victory at the BT Arena, winning 6-2, 6-1 in 57 minutes. Raducanu had predicted things would be much different in Cluj-Napoca, because of how far they have both come, but in the end the scoreline almost matched it. “She destroyed me in juniors,” the Briton said, referring to their last meeting in Belgium six years ago, when the Ukrainian played 12-year-old Raducanu off the court, winning 6-1, 6-1. While Kostyuk said ahead of their clash that she could not recall those meetings, for Raducanu the memory was fresh. ![]() The pair are contemporaries, both born in 2002, and played each other a couple of times as juniors – recording a win each in Tennis Europe tournaments. Unlike most players Raducanu has faced so far in her career, she and Kostyuk have history. But all credit to Marta for staying focused.” I was quite tired and lethargic, but sometimes you just have those days when you don’t feel your best. I wasn’t physically feeling 100 per cent. Marta’s a great athlete, so I knew it was going to be a tough match. But I just couldn’t get it going today, unfortunately. “I wanted to try my best, and maybe it would go better. “I was tired today, I knew from the morning, I knew from practice,” she said. Raducanu, 18, lacked the fighting spirit and precision she had shown in her previous two matches in Cluj-Napoca, racking up 41 unforced errors, and said afterwards she was not surprised, because she felt “lethargic” all day ahead of the evening start-time. In an error-strewn and at times disengaged performance, the US Open champion said “tiredness” contributed to her wilting when faced with world No 55 Kostyuk’s powerful play. It took less than an hour for Emma Raducanu to crash out of the Transylvania Open, after fellow teenager Marta Kostyuk denied her the chance to face her idol Simona Halep in the semi-finals.
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