![\"Mark](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/skysports-mark-petchey-tennis_6976368.png\")
<\/p>\nEmma Raducanu continued the winning feeling by sealing a comfortable victory in her opening match of the National Bank Open in Montreal on Monday.<\/p>\n
She picked up statement wins over Marta Kostyuk, four-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka and former world No 3 Maria Sakkari en route to the final four in Washington last week and she continued the feel-good factor at the WTA 1000 tournament in Canada.<\/p>\n
Raducanu, who jumped 13 places in the rankings to world No 33 to reclaim her position as British No 1, eased past Elena-Gabriela Ruse from Romania 6-2 6-4 in front of coach Mark Petchey after their partnership was left up in the air following her Wimbledon third-round defeat.<\/p>\n
\n Raducanu’s projected path for Montreal\n <\/p>\n
R1: Ruse – WIN<\/p>\n
R2: Stearns<\/p>\n
R3: Anisimova<\/p>\n
R4: Svitolina\/Mertens<\/p>\n
QF: Pegula\/Ostapenko\/Samsonova<\/p>\n
SF: Swiatek\/Keys\/Bencic\/Muchova<\/p>\n
F: Gauff\/Paolini\/Andreeva\/Rybakina<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Mark Petchey was back in Raducanu’s coaching box to celebrate her opening win in Montreal<\/p>\n
Raducanu, who will next face American 32nd seed Peyton Stearns in the second round, said: “I’m so happy to come through that. I know Elena, she’s a very good friend of mine, and it’s difficult when you have to play someone you’re close to, so I’m really proud of how I put that to one side for the match and backed up a good week last week in DC and performed well today.<\/p>\n
“It’s extremely difficult [to play someone you know]. We spent a lot of time together in off-court practices, and she’s a great girl. It’s not nice when you see her name in the draw but I’m really pleased with how I performed with myself.”<\/p>\n
![\"Emma](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/skysports-tennis-raducanu_6976407.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Raducanu was pleased after her opening match at the National Bank Open in Montreal<\/p>\n
\n Four British women in the WTA top 100 this week\n <\/p>\n
33rd Emma Raducanu<\/p>\n
43rd Katie Boulter<\/p>\n
48th Sonay Kartal<\/p>\n
84th Fran Jones<\/p>\n
Raducanu flew from Washington to Montreal on Sunday night and immediately faced five break points in her first service game.<\/p>\n
But in more hot and humid conditions in Canada, Raducanu showed her resilience and leaned on her improved serve to claim a crucial hold before more issues were forthcoming in her next service game.<\/p>\n
After Raducanu again survived, having been taken to deuce, she sensed her moment and was able to break Ruse to move 3-2 up after the Romanian sent down two double-faults.<\/p>\n
Twitter<\/p>\n
This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies. Enable Cookies<\/a> It sparked a run of six consecutive games for Raducanu as she clinched the opener by a 6-2 score, but an early break at the start of the second set was followed by an immediate response from Ruse.<\/p>\n While Raducanu forced more break points on Ruse’s serve, it was not until the seventh game of set two that the 2021 US Open champion broke again to move 4-3 ahead.<\/p>\n It started a run of three consecutive breaks before Raducanu kept her cool to close out victory at the first time of asking on serve after a demanding one-hour-and-37-minute battle in front of delighted coach Petchey.<\/p>\n It was a sixth win in her last eight matches, while she is now 4-0 against Romanian players in tour-level main-draw matches.<\/p>\n \n WTA 1000 main draw match wins\n <\/p>\n Only Johanna Konta in 2016 (19) has won more WTA 1000 main draw matches in a single entire season than Emma Raducanu in 2025 (10) among British players since the format’s introduction in 2009<\/p>\n Speaking to Sky Sports, Billie Jean King Cup captain Anne Keothavong said: “That’s a performance she should feel proud of. Tidy tennis and she played very much within herself.<\/p>\n “I do feel like she’s got a few more gears to go if needed, but she is through to the second round.”<\/p>\n Miles Maclagan, Andy Murray’s former coach, said: “That is a good win. It’s always impressive when you follow up a good week. It’s tough to get going after some emotional highs.<\/p>\n “From conditions which are slower in Washington to these courts, which are quicker, generally a little less humid but not today.”<\/p>\n Watch the ATP and WTA Tours, as well as the US Open in New York, live on Sky Sports in 2025 or stream with NOW<\/a> and the Sky Sports app<\/a>, giving Sky Sports customers access to over 50 per cent more live sport this year at no extra cost. Find out more here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emma Raducanu continued the winning feeling by sealing a comfortable victory in her opening match of the National…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-30223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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