LONDON \u2014 Former US Open champion Emma Raducanu said that she is back to her best after the British star won twice in the space of just six hours to earn a Queen\u2019s Club final clash with Croatia\u2019s Donna Vekic.<\/p>\n
Raducanu reached the first grass-court final of her career by thrashing American sixth seed Iva Jovic 6-2, 6-2 in the semifinals of the Wimbledon warm-up event in west London.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old had already defeated Kamilla Rakhimova 6-3, 7-5 in the quarterfinals earlier, in a match briefly halted by the deafening noise caused by aeroplanes taking part in the royal \u2018Trooping the Colour\u2019 flyover in the capital.<\/p>\n
A slip in the second set of that quarterfinal had sparked concern about Raducanu\u2019s fitness after she emerged from a medical break with her left thigh wrapped in heavy tape.<\/p>\n
But the world number 42 played the semifinal with a smaller patch in the same location and moved comfortably enough to demolish the 18-year-old Jovic.<\/p>\n
Raducanu has not dropped a set on route to the final, beating two players ranked in the world\u2019s top 20.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means everything to be doing this here at Queen\u2019s. The whole day has been electric,\u201d Raducanu said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week has been incredible, I really enjoy playing here and that shows in my tennis.<\/p>\n
\u201cAsk any British player and they would love to lift the title here. We\u2019ve been through some tough moments in the last few months but have been putting in the hard work and I want to thank my team for helping me get into the final.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raducanu is one win away from her first title since lifting the US Open trophy after her stunning triumph as a qualifier in 2021.<\/p>\n
She has appeared revitalised since her decision last month to rehire Andrew Richardson, the man who coached her to that historic title in New York five years ago.<\/p>\n
After first parting company with Richardson, Raducanu had cycled through a host of coaches without success in a bid to recapture the glory of her run at the US Open.<\/p>\n
Raducanu has not reached the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam since her US Open victory.<\/p>\n
She has been hampered by fitness issues for several years and arrived at Queen\u2019s with only one win in her previous seven matches.<\/p>\n
Raducanu reached the final at the Transylvania Open in February, losing to Sorana Cirstea, whom she defeated in the last 16 at Queen\u2019s earlier this week.<\/p>\n
After beating Jovic, Raducanu was asked if the \u201cold Emma\u201d had returned.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s necessarily the old Emma, I think it\u2019s the new Emma,\u201d she said ahead of the final.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause if you take all the lessons and experience, all the different ups and downs, you understand a lot more what\u2019s going on and what works for you. So I\u2019d say that I\u2019m back and better,\u201d she added according to AFP.<\/p>\n
Croatian world number 76 Vekic beat Britain\u2019s Katie Boulter 6-1, 6-3 in the other semifinal, extending her unexpected run at a tournament she only entered as a \u2018lucky loser\u2019 when another player pulled out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2014 Former US Open champion Emma Raducanu said that she is back to her best after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-266352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}