\nEmma Raducanu celebrates winning match point against Anna Blinkova.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n
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Emma Raducanu hailed her clarity of thought following a scintillating first-round display at the LTA\u2019s HSBC Championships.<\/p>\n
The 2021 US Open champion needed only an hour at Queen\u2019s to storm past qualifier Anna Blinkova 6-0 6-3 after the match had been halted early on due to rain.<\/p>\n
And while the inclement weather proved only fleeting, Raducanu\u2019s exploits on the Andy Murray Arena showed her back at her consistent best as she conjured up her first win since the second round of the Indian Wells Open back in March.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started extremely well, and despite not having played a lot of matches, I was really pleased with how I came out and I was playing very free,\u201d said Raducanu, who will face Sorana C\u00eerstea in the second round. \u201cI was feeding off of the atmosphere, and (how I played) felt free, it felt clear, and with a lot of clarity. I was not necessarily thinking too much or trying to do too much. It felt very natural.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having reunited with coach Andrew Richardson, the man who guided her to success at Flushing Meadows five years ago, Raducanu made a strong start to proceedings as she raced into a 3-0 lead after breaking Blinkova in the second game.<\/p>\n
The rain momentarily halted Raducanu\u2019s progress, but once the clouds relented, the British No.1 picked up where she left off, breaking the Russian to love before holding serve for a third time to extend her advantage to 5-0.<\/p>\n
A feature throughout the match was Raducanu\u2019s imperious forehand and it was that weapon that saw her clinch the first set in just 20 minutes having won 25 points compared to her opponent\u2019s six.<\/p>\n
A delightful cross-court backhand was the pick of Raducanu\u2019s winners as she took the first game of the second set.<\/p>\n
But after losing eight straight games, Blinkova enjoyed her best spell of the contest as she rallied to level at 3-3, in part thanks to Raducanu\u2019s three-consecutive double faults in the sixth game.<\/p>\n
But much to the delight of the crowd, last year\u2019s quarter-finalist upped the ante thereafter as she took the last three games and clinched victory with a stylish back-hand winner down the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love playing on grass,\u201d added Raducanu. \u201cIt felt really good to be back out playing on a home court in front of the fans. I’m really proud of my performance today.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the latest updates on the British summer grass court season, visit the LTA website,<\/em> <\/strong>lta.org.uk<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Raducanu produced one of her sharpest displays of the season as she swept aside Anna<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}