Emma Raducanu’s impressive Miami Open run has come to an end, but she is set to be rewarded with a return to the top 50 in the WTA Rankings.
The 2021 US Open winner went down in three sets in a high-quality quarter-final match against world No 4 Jessica Pegula in Florida.
After taking out eight seed Emma Navarro, McCartney Kessler and 17th seed Amanda Anisimova, the Brit was looking for a fourth consecutive win against an American player, but Pegula held firm to come away with a 6-4, 6-7 (3-7), 6-2 victory.
Up next for Pegula is a semi-final against surprise package Alex Eala after the Filipino stunned world No 2 Iga Swiatek in straight sets.
For Raducanu there were a lot of positives during the match and the tournament as a whole and none was more impressive than her serving.
She didn’t serve a single double fault during the last-eight clash while her first-serve percentage was 70%. Pegula, meanwhile, made one double fault with a first-serve percentage of 78%.
Raducanu saved five out of nine break points, but only converted one of her six while she hit 30 winners to 18 unforced with her opponent hitting 48 winners and made 27 unforced errors.
Pegula broke in game five of the opening set, but the world No 60 responded with a break in game four of the second set as she went on to open a 5-2 lead.
However, she started struggling with dizziness and Pegula got the break back before Raducanu called for the doctor with the score 5-4.
Her blood pressure was taken and she continued with the set going to a tie-breaker. After going down a mini-break, the 22-year-old claimed two mini-breaks of her own to open a 4-2 lead before winning the tie-breaker 7-3.
But the American came out stronger in the decider as she broke in game two and, after saving a break point in game three, she wrapped it up by breaking to love in game eight.
Rankings Move
Having started the year at No 60, Raducanu jumped to No 54 in February before slipping back to No 60 after a couple of poor tournaments.
But she will now return to the top 50 as she is projected to move up 12 places to No 48 after earning 215 points with her run to the quarter-final.
Raducanu had already admitted that she is feeling much better as her hunger and competitiveness have returned.
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In an interview with Sky Sports Tennis earlier this week, she said: “I think I’m playing better than in Australia this year.
Circumstances change all the time, but for me the biggest thing I’m proud of is just finding the competitive spirit and being there for every ball and drawing that out of myself. I think that’s kind of been missing in the last few months and even few years at times.
“I think that’s the biggest win for me, just feeling a lot of hunger, feeling on the court competitive, wanting to run down every ball, and that’s the biggest win I would say from this week.”
What Is Next?
Raducanu won’t feature on the WTA Tour next week with her next event the Billie Jean King Cup qualifying matches with Great Britain facing the Netherlands and Germany.
Her next regular WTA event is the Open de Rouen in France with the tournament starting on 14 April.