{"id":94219,"date":"2025-08-24T19:53:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T19:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/94219\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T19:53:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T19:53:07","slug":"raducanu-thrashes-ena-shibahara-for-first-us-open-victory-since-2021-title-us-open-tennis-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/94219\/","title":{"rendered":"Raducanu thrashes Ena Shibahara for first US Open victory since 2021 title | US Open Tennis 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four years after her three life-\u00adchanging weeks in New York, Emma Raducanu overcame a significant mental \u00adhurdle as she secured her first victory at the US\u00a0Open since her 2021 title<\/a> run in impressive fashion, dismantling the qualifier Ena Shibahara 6-1, 6-2 to finally return to the second round.<\/p>\n

After painful first-round defeats by Aliz\u00e9 Cornet and Sofia Kenin, plus a withdrawal in 2023 during an eight-month injury layoff, Raducanu showed her growth and newfound self-assurance by putting together a solid, clean performance against an inferior opponent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been on my mind,\u201d \u00adRaducanu said of her inability to win\u00a0a match in New York. \u201cIt\u2019s been four years, and it\u2019s a very special tournament for me. I did feel dif\u00adferent coming into it this year. I felt like I was doing the right things day to day, but still, it\u2019s in the back of your head. So I\u2019m just very pleased to have overcome that.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the victory, the British No\u00a01 is now 20-4 against lower-ranked \u00adplayers over the past year and her ability to consistently win \u00adfavourable match-ups has been a key part of her steady rise up the rankings. She will next face Janice Tjen, another qualifier, who beat the 24th seed, \u00adVeronika Kudermetova, in the first round.<\/p>\n

It also signified a confidence-building first grand slam victory alongside her new Spanish coach, Francisco Roig, who again offered his charge a constant stream of positive reinforcement from a \u00adcorner of Louis Armstrong Stadium. Roig was joined in Raducanu\u2019s player box by Jerome Poupel, a chiropractor who has been helping Raducanu with her continued back injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been helping me for the last year, I would say. I\u2019ve had back problems for the last year, so he\u2019s just really helped with that,\u201d Raducanu said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I\u2019ve been playing more tennis and training more, it\u2019s just important for me to stay on top of that. It\u2019s cool, you know, he\u2019s worked in F1, he\u2019s worked with horses, so it\u2019s very different. But I\u2019m just enjoying \u00adhaving him around. He\u2019s a great, calm but eccentric kind of character.\u201d<\/p>\n

During their time working together, Poupel has offered \u00adRaducanu unique insights on her character. \u201cHe said that my character is similar to a horse,\u201d she said. \u201cCan be quite stubborn, dig their heels in. He\u2019s got experience. Hopefully he can read me. And also they kind of wear their emotion on their sleeve.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they\u2019re not feeling like they want to do something they probably won\u2019t do it. I\u2019m just happy to have him around. He\u2019s got so much dif\u00adferent, diverse experience that it\u2019s great to have that insight.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was a good first-round draw for Raducanu, but Shibahara is an interesting figure in her own right. An American-born Japanese player, the 27-year-old is a former top four doubles player and the 2022 French Open mixed doubles champion. Shibahara only opted to prioritise singles last year and she has performed admirably, rising from outside the top 500 to her current ranking of No\u00a0128. \u00adHowever, she has never defeated a top-50 opponent and this contest marked just the second grand slam main draw appearance of her career.<\/p>\n

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From the beginning, Raducanu set the tone with a calming hold to love. As she rolled through the match, she found a nice balance between imposing herself with her early ball striking and remaining solid against an erratic opponent who finished the match with 36 unforced errors. While Raducanu once spent a significant amount of time scouting opponents, she puts part of her success down to finding solutions within herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like watching the opponents,\u201d Raducanu said. \u201cI think I\u2019m \u00adprobably watching less now. I just have a good awareness of the opponent, what they like to do, and a lot more centred around me. I think I\u2019m trusting myself, trusting my own abilities a lot more and I know what I need to do on the court as well, not necessarily searching so much to the box, \u00adasking for what to do, only if I feel like I really need it. I think that\u2019s helped me keep my head in the match, rather than looking up, getting distracted, and kind of searching for something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the tournament, \u00adRaducanu spoke in depth<\/a> about how the US\u00a0Open has generated conflicting emotions for her over the years. Her first\u2011round defeat against Kenin last year was a particularly low point, and Raducanu broke down in tears \u00adduring her post-match press conference.<\/p>\n

Things are clearly different now. This summer Raducanu has become a more match tough and confident player than at any point in the past four years. Now she will try to turn that conviction and con\u00adtentment into another positive run in New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four years after her three life-\u00adchanging weeks in New York, Emma Raducanu overcame a significant mental \u00adhurdle as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-94219","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\/94219","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=94219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}