Emma Raducanu needed a medical timeout for her nagging back problem before crashing out of the HSBC Championships at Queen’s Club. And the new British No.1 now faces a race to get fully fit for Wimbledon later this month.
Raducanu had treatment after losing the first set to Olympic champion Qinwen Zheng at the Queen’s Club on the hottest day of the year.
She returned to break the Chinese serve twice at the start of the second set to take a 3-0 lead. But the classy world No.5 showed her class to fight back to win 6-2 6-4 in one hour and 50 minutes .
All the British players are now out of the singles here and Raducanu is now 0-6 in quarter-finals in WTA 500 events. The world No.37 had planned to play further grasscourt events in Berlin and Eastbourne before the start of Wimbledon on June 30.
The former US Open champion suffered back spasms before the Australian Open and again at the Strasbourg Open last month and before her first grasscourt event of the year.
In her pre-event press conference, Raducanu admitted her “expectations are pretty low” and added: “I can’t really predict the future, and how it’s going to be. I know I’ve been managing my back for the last few weeks now. It’s something that comes and goes.”
Raducanu had started and finished her opening service game with aces but her serve was under relentless pressure for the rest of the 49-minute opening set.
She saved three break points in the fourth game at 1-2. And in her next service game, Zheng annoyed the crowd by changing her shoes mid-game after slipping chasing a short ball on the first break point. The slow hand clap – along with a smattering of boos – is the closest the well-heeled Queen’s Club clientele come to an open rebellion.
Raducanu won the next point to huge applause but Zheng took her fourth break point with a crushing backhand winner down the line to break to lead 4-2 after 38 minutes.
The new British No.1 set up two immediate break-back points in the next game after a running forehand pass but both were saved. And Zheng took her first set point to break Raducanu for a second time when she chased down a poor drop shot and slipped again – only for the world No.37 to tamely push a forehand into the net with the court open.
Andy Murray limped out of his last ever singles match on this court 12 months ago. And in the newly named Andy Murray Arena, there were fears that Raducanu’s tournament could be over when she took a medical timeout at the end of the set.
But she returned to play her best tennis of the match as No.1 seed Zheng suffered a dip. She had a terrible opening service game and was broken for the first time after a double fault. And after Raducanu held her serve with an audacious drop shot, she was 3-0 after breaking Zheng again but gave both breaks back to trail 4-5.
Serving to stay in the match, she sent down a seventh doubles fault before saving three match points as Zheng failed to return three consecutive serves. But the Chinese star took her fourth match point when Raducanu slapped a forehand long.
The first semi-final on Saturday will be between Australian Open champion Madison Keys and German veteran Tatjana Maria.
The world No.86, now 37 and a mother-of-two, beat former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina 6-4 7-6.
“Oh my God, it means so much to me,” said Maria, the 2022 Wimbledon semi-finalist who came through qualifying. “And I’m living this dream with my family with me. It is a perfect example to never give up and keep going.”
Content Source: www.express.co.uk