This year, Raducanu has insisted that the venue is her “happy place,” and she got her tournament off to a promising start by easing past Japanese qualifier Ena Shibahara<\/a> in straight sets.<\/p>\n The win is the latest bright point in what is the some of the best tennis of Raducanu’s career to date, using her consistent results and injury-free health to climb back towards the world’s top 30.<\/p>\n “Of course, I’m very, very pleased,” Raducanu said, noting that it had been a while since she came out on the right side of a score in New York, “so it’s extra special.”<\/p>\n On a partly cloudy and breezy morning, Raducanu came out strong in the day’s first match at Louis Armstrong Stadium, needing just 40 minutes to lead by a set and two breaks at 3-0 in the second.<\/p>\n With her new coach, Francisco Roig, who worked with 22-time major champion Rafael Nadal for many years, sitting near a corner of the court and constantly offering positive reinforcement, Raducanu’s groundstrokes frequently rushed Shibahara, a qualifier from Japan who is ranked 128th.<\/p>\n “Vamos!” Roig said at one point. “You’re doing very good.”<\/p>\n Shibahara hadn’t dropped a set through her three qualifying wins — and Raducanu knows better than anyone what sort of momentum can be gained from that sort of prelude to the main draw. Raducanu is the only tennis player to win a Grand Slam title after needing to go through qualifying to earn a spot in the tournament bracket.<\/p>\n Since that life-altering triumph, though, things haven’t gone to plan for Raducanu. In 2022, she became only the third reigning women’s champion in the professional era to lose in the first round a year later, after Svetlana Kuznetsova and Angelique Kerber.<\/p>\n And then came several injury issues.<\/p>\n Raducanu is healthy now, and she showed what she can do when at her best against an overmatched opponent.<\/p>\n – What to watch at the US Open 2025: Ranking the top contenders<\/a> She faced only one break point — and saved it.<\/p>\n She made only six unforced errors — and made headway by allowing Shibahara to finish with 36.<\/p>\n “Managed myself, managed my game, during that match,” Raducanu said. “I see the progress I’m making on the practice court.”<\/p>\n Information from The Associated Press was included in this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aug 24, 2025, 12:18 PM ET Until Sunday, Emma Raducanu had failed to win a match at Flushing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-107103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Emma Raducanu got off to the perfect start in Flushing Meadows.\u00a0Clive Brunskill\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
– Inside look at Pegula, Draper’s first day of US Open mixed doubles<\/a>
– Carlos Alcaraz, Emma Raducanu and a world of shipping<\/a><\/p>\n