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Although the Transylvania Open is a WTA250 tournament, the lowest level on the main women\u2019s tour, and she has yet to face an opponent ranked inside the top 90, it was satisfying for Raducanu to progress to another final. She has lost her three previous semi-finals since her victory at Flushing Meadows in 2021. <\/p>\n
In the final on Saturday, she will face Sorana Cirstea, the world No36 from Romania. Her progression to the final means that Raducanu will become the world No25 on Monday.<\/p>\n
Oliynykova, 25, from Ukraine, already heavily tattooed and with Transylvanian bats stencilled on her cheeks, proved a particularly tricky opponent. She presented a singular challenge with her style of play, frequently mixing up the tempo of her strokes with scooped \u201cmoonball\u201d forehands.<\/p>\n
After a see-sawing first set that lasted one hour and 12 minutes, the first three games of the second set were all breaks of service, Raducanu twice breaking to love. She then let out a huge roar when she held serve with a smash to open up a 3-1 lead. But her serve began to falter and a double fault gave Oliynykova a break point in the sixth game of the set, which she duly converted with a powerful cross-court forehand.<\/p>\n
Oliynykova then secured a second consecutive break, as Raducanu underhit a backhand into the net on break point. At this stage Raducanu was becoming flustered, exchanging terse comments over her strategy with Alexis Canter, her hitting partner, who has been courtside during this tournament in place of a coach. <\/p>\n
She had two break points at 5-3 down, but failed to capitalise on either and Oliynykova wrapped up the set in 50 minutes as Raducanu hit errant forehands. <\/p>\n
Fifth time Raducanu has reached last four on TourUS Open 2021 Final (winner) Nottingham 2024 Semi-final Washington 2025 Semi-final<\/p>\n
In search of a change of fortune, Raducanu left the court between sets and re-emerged with a fresh outfit, but the momentum remained with Oliynykova, whose backhand became increasingly potent and she broke Raducanu to love to lead 2-1.<\/p>\n
Raducanu, though, remained bold, advancing to the net with more conviction than her opponent and volleying clinically. On break point to level the set at 2-2, she clinched the game with a deftly cushioned volley. By now, she was beginning to read Oliynykova\u2019s serve beautifully, and in the sixth game of the set she broke to love to lead 4-2.<\/p>\n
She extended her streak of consecutive points to 13 by holding serve to love and, at 5-2 up, had three match points at 0-40 on Oliynykova\u2019s serve. She was unable to convert any, the first a wayward backhand return, the second a brilliant drop shot from her opponent, the third a forehand into the net.<\/p>\n
Serving for the match, Raducanu still had to battle, saving two break points, the second with a bold and beautifully executed drop shot. A similar stroke then gained her a fourth match point, and she clinched the match, finally, with a sense of relief as she forced a backhand error from Oliynykova.<\/p>\n
In another WTA250 event, the Ostrava Open in the Czech Republic, Katie Boulter also made it through to the final, enjoying a comfortable 6-1, 6-3 victory over Katie Volynets, the world No96 from the United States. Boulter, ranked No120 after a difficult year, will face either Diane Parry, the world No119, or Tamara Korpatsch, the No124, in the final. It will be the first time that two British players on the WTA Tour will compete in different finals on the same day.<\/p>\n
In the Davis Cup, a doubles victory for Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool ensured that Great Britain took an unassailable 3-0 lead in their qualifying tie away to Norway. Cash and Glasspool beat Viktor Durasovic and Nicolai Budkov Kjaer 6-2, 2-6, 7-6 (7-5), after the singles victories a day earlier for Jack Draper and Cameron Norrie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emma Raducanu has reached her first tour-level final since her US Open fairytale five years ago, finding her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-464049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}