Boris Becker has issued a brutal two-word response after Emma Raducanu made it through to the Transylvania Open semi-final.
Raducanu, 23, who crashed out of last month’s Australian Open with a surprise last 64 defeat to world No.58 Anastasia Potapova, has been back in action at the Romania tournament this week.
The former US Open champion beat Greet Minnen and Kaja Juvan to reach the quarter-final and she then dispached Poland’s Maja Chwalisnka 6-0, 6-4 on Thursday to make it into her FIFTH career semi-final at tour level.
Before this, Raducanu had got to at least the four at the 2021 US Open – the one she won – the 2022 Korea Open, the 2024 Nottingham Open, 2025 Washington Open and now the Transylvania Open.
When that statistic appeared on X, however, six-time Grand Slam winner Becker responded and fired a dig at Raducanu. Indeed, after it was revealed that she had reached just five career semi-finals, the 58-year-old German replied with: “That’s it?”
Raducanu hasn’t won a WTA Tour event since her success at the US Open four-and-a-half years ago. But with the Toronto-born ace the top seed at the Transylvania Open this week, she has a real chance of ending her long drought for a title.
Speaking after her comfortable win against Chwalisnka, Raducanu admitted she was “very happy” with her performance. The world No.30 dropped just four games and was in total control from the get-go against the Pole in Cluj.
“I’m very happy with my performance today,” Raducanu said in her on-court interview. “I think I played a great match from the beginning and really pleased I could get off to that start. As always, there’s going to be some moments of adversity that you need to overcome, and I did that well in the second set.
“So really proud of how I did that. And Maya’s a really tricky opponent, moves incredibly well, has great hand skills, so she’s done a great job this week, qualifying and coming all the way here.
“So [I’m] really pleased to have overcome that challenge.
“I didn’t have much time last night to kind of get ready for this one. I’m just really focusing on recovery. Because each match, no matter the scoreline, it takes a lot out of you just to be so focused for however long it takes.
“So yeah, [I] need to just recover.”
Next up for Raducanu is world No.91 Oleksandra Oliynykova in the semi-final on Friday afternoon. Should Raducanu beat the Ukranian, she would face world No.36 and third seed Sorana Cirstea or world No.144 Daria Snigur in the final.