Winning ugly? Not here, not as Emma Raducanu beamed to the Court No 1 crowd and skipped to the net after this ruthless destruction of Elise Mertens. It would be wrong to declare this a vintage victory, given Raducanu still has relatively little grand slam experience behind her, but a fabulous 6-1 6-2 victory in just 75 minutes against the world No 33 felt a little reminiscent of a couple of famous weeks as an 18-year-old in New York three years ago.
Raducanu was happy to emerge with a scrappy opening win on Monday but this was a performance to be proud of in front of the Wimbledon crowd. When asked to describe how she played, a fan interrupted before she had the chance to reply. If “ugly” was the assessment of her first-round win, a cry of “beautiful!” from the stands was met with approval by the rest of the crowd. Certainly, Raducanu has rarely produced such a comprehensive and commanding attacking display since her big breakthrough in winning the US Open.
Against the unsuspecting Mertens, Raducanu returned to that gameplan. If the Briton routinely stunned her opponents by racing to a series of rapid, straight-sets wins in her sensational grand slam triumph, always playing at full throttle, she brought flashes of her best to Wimbledon.
Raducanu is now into the third round of a grand slam for the first time since that US Open triumph and, while she has missed many of those opportunities due to injury, it was the performance here that was more pleasing than securing her best result at a major in three years. For Raducanu, it was a delight to be back on this stage playing her natural game. Fittingly, a reward for a throwback display is a rematch with Maria Sakkari, her defeated semi-finalist on the way to winning the US Open in 2021.
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