Home ›› 11 Mar 2023 ›› Sport
Former US Open champion Emma Raducanu rallied from a break down in each set to beat Danka Kovinic 6-2, 6-3 on Thursday and reach the second round of the Indian Wells WTA and ATP Masters 1000.
Britain’s Raducanu avenged a 2022 Australian Open second-round loss to the Montenegrin as she continued her fightback from various ailments that have slowed her 2023 campaign.
“I’m happy I stuck in,” said Raducanu, who had shut down her 2022 season early with wrist trouble and hurt her ankle in her second match of 2023 in Auckland.
Raducanu had shut down her 2022 season early with wrist trouble and hurt her ankle in her second match of 2023 in Auckland.
She pulled out of the WTA event in Austin last week with tonsillitis and withdrew from a pre-tournament exhibition here when her wrist trouble flared up.
But she said the litany of problems only made her more determined.
“I just love competing,” Raducanu said. “Even when it’s against you and you’re just through it, I think having something that, that you are going through, kind of gives you in some ways more incentive.
“Like, ‘OK ‘I’ve got to be aggressive or dominate -- there’s somethign to really cling onto and use.”
Raducanu, the 2021 US Open champion, was just one of the former Grand Slam winners in action in the California desert, where the 32 men’s and women’s seeds -- led by Carlos Alcaraz and Iga Swiatek -- enjoyed first-round byes.
Three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka fired 17 winners in a 6-4, 1-6, 6-1 victory over Australian qualifier Aleksandar Vukic to set up a second-round clash with 26th-seeded Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia.
