{"id":389698,"date":"2026-01-05T19:37:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T19:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/389698\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T19:37:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T19:37:07","slug":"raducanu-fails-to-last-distance-as-britain-suffer-bitter-united-cup-loss-to-greece-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/389698\/","title":{"rendered":"Raducanu fails to last distance as Britain suffer bitter United Cup loss to Greece | Tennis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Great Britain fell to a bitter 2-1 loss in their decisive United Cup tie against Greece in the round-robin group stage as Emma Raducanu<\/a> fought hard to overcome her injury-ravaged preparation for the new season before fading physically in her first match of the year, losing 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 against Maria Sakkari.<\/p>\n

Raducanu\u2019s defeat had been preceded by a courageous performance from the British men\u2019s No 5 Billy Harris, who played one of the best matches of his career before falling 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (7-4) to the former world No 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas. In the mixed doubles dead rubber, Neal Skupski and Olivia Nicholls defeated Despina Papamichail and Stefanos Sakellaridis 6-2, 3-6, 10-4.<\/p>\n

Raducanu said she was frustrated with the defeat but satisfied with her performance: \u201cConsidering the circumstances, doubt whether I was going to play or not today, I\u2019m pretty happy with how I was able to play a match of three sets,\u201d she said. \u201cConsidering I played five, six games in practice, it is a big effort for me. I\u2019m really proud of how I put myself out there, despite the scenario and situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In what has become a common theme in Raducanu\u2019s career, the 23-year-old entered the stadium surrounded by doubts about her form and preparation after Sunday\u2019s revelation that her foot injury had forced her off the court for most of the off-season.<\/p>\n

There were positives for Raducanu to take from the match \u2013 she moved well in the first two sets and as her competitive juices began to flow deep in the second set, she found her range, taking the ball early and producing some excellent shotmaking to force a third set against an impressive Sakkari. However, after giving herself a chance in the match, Raducanu flatlined in the final games while the Greek effortlessly maintained her intensity to close out her first win over the Briton in her fifth attempt.<\/p>\n

Later, Raducanu shed light on her physical struggles over the past five weeks. \u201cI started hitting two weeks ago, so it\u2019s been a good two and a bit months where I didn\u2019t play. I did fitness. It\u2019s been difficult to increase the load and add the unpredictability of the tennis. I think today, being able to produce that, having not played, is just giving me confidence to what I can do when I do practice more. I know now I just need to get my head down, keep working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raducanu had been hoping to follow up a solid 2025 season with a strong off-season. She said she simply had to accept her situation. \u201cI think you have to just take it as it comes,\u201d she said. \u201cI went to Barcelona for two weeks, but wasn\u2019t really able to play. I just did a lot of gym where I could, then started static hitting. I played my first points two days ago in practice. It\u2019s been a very fast run path. Today was good exposure. Happy I spent two and a half hours out there and I\u2019m OK right now. I just need to keep going. The season is still very, very young. Week one. There\u2019s a long way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier Harris, ranked No 127, courageously took his big serve and forehand to Tsitsipas, serving excellently and constantly looking to dominate with his forehand. He pushed Tsitsipas throughout, but it was the Greek who served best and took control of the baseline in the final set tie-break to close out a much-needed win. \u201cI\u2019m glad that the level\u2019s there against someone like that,\u201d said Harris. \u201cIt gives me confidence going into the rest of the year. So yeah, no one likes to lose. I\u2019ll take the positives, learn from the match, and hopefully come back stronger against good players again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Great Britain fell to a bitter 2-1 loss in their decisive United Cup tie against Greece in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-389698","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\/389698","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=389698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}