Emma Raducanu reveals she is actually “a quite quiet” type of person. Raducanu, 20, kicked off her 2023 season at this week’s ASB Classic in Auckland. The tournament organizers caught up with Raducanu to ask her a few interesting questions.
“What’s one thing people don’t know about you,” the host asked Raducanu. Raducanu answered: “People don’t know, I’m probably quite quiet in general.”
Raducanu clinched her first win of the season
In her first match of the season, Raducanu staged a big comeback.
Playing against 17-year-old Linda Fruhvirtova, Raducanu found herself down by a set and a break to the Czech teenage sensation. But Raducanu refused to quit and ended up with a 4-6 6-4 6-2 win. The first break of the match was seen in the 10th game, when Raducanu was serving to stay in the opener.
After losing the first set on a devastating way, Raducanu also lost her serve early on in the second set as Fruhvirtova opened a 2-0 second-set lead. Down by a set and a break, Raducanu responded with back-to-back breaks on her own to take a 4-2 lead.
Raducanu then held on to her serve the rest of the second set to send the match into a third set. After winning the second set, Raducanu started the third set with three breaks in a row and a 5-0 lead. Raducanu didn’t serve out for the match in the sixth game but did so in the eighth game to complete a big comeback win.
After the match, Raducanu admitted that hearing the youngsters supporting her motivated her to push harder. “I was like, you need to stop this and just pick it up, like be more aggressive and swing more freely. It’s always difficult playing your first match of the year, so it was always going to be a little bit of a challenge, especially with the conditions.
I was loving the support. I felt like everyone was behind me and I absolutely loved it. Some moments it was tricky in the score and I would hear a young kid say ‘Come on Emma’ and I was like, ‘come on, let’s go,'” Raducanu said after the match.
