Raducanu came into the New York encounter against Rybakina riding a wave of optimism.<\/p>\n
A productive season, where she has spent more time on court and looked increasingly resilient, has put her on the verge of climbing back into the world’s top 30.<\/p>\n
Raducanu’s ranking has not been higher since September 2022 – when her mountain of points for winning the US Open fell off.<\/p>\n
But she fell just short of earning a seeding at Flushing Meadows, which left her open to facing a highly-ranked player early in the draw.<\/p>\n
“I’ve lost to Iga twice, Aryna, and Elena, so it’s tough,” Raducanu said.<\/p>\n
“But at the same time, that’s where I’m at with my ranking. I can play top opponents in the first, second, or third round. <\/p>\n
“So I’ve just got to do my best in the next few months until Australia to just keep working to try and close the gap.”<\/p>\n
Twice pushing Sabalenka – taking her to three sets in Cincinnati less than a month after their Wimbledon meeting – were further signs of encouragement.<\/p>\n
However, the chastening defeat by world number nine Rybakina, who hit the Briton off court with a flurry of excoriating winners, was a reminder of how she still needs to improve.<\/p>\n
It meant Raducanu has now won just three of her 18 career matches against top-10 opponents.<\/p>\n
“Depending on the day, depending on how we match up, I think I’m getting better overall,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I think I’m improving for sure in the last few months. I just need to keep consistent and put this one behind.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Raducanu came into the New York encounter against Rybakina riding a wave of optimism. A productive season, where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-119754","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\/119754","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=119754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}