Murray on march, but Raducanu exits early
ANDY MURRAY got off to a good start in the Stockholm Open, but it was not such good news for Emma Raducanu in Austria.
While Murray just needed two sets to progress to the second round after defeating qualifier Viktor Durasovic. 6-1, 7-6 (9-7), Raducanu lost to qualifier Wang Xinyu 6-1, 6-7 (0-7), 7-5 at the Upper Austria Ladies Linz.
Murray overwhelmed Durasovic, ranked 354, in the 29-minute first set, but the Norwegian put up a good fight in the second before Murray triumphed in a tight tie-break.
The Scot will now take on 20-year-old top seed Jannik Italian Sinner, who narrowly missed out on a place at the ATP Finals. It will be the pair’s first meeting.
“I got off to a very good start and the second set he started to play better and was a bit more comfortable,” Murray said. “At the end it was just a big fight, and I managed to get the tie-break… It feels like he is playing better than 300 or so in the world.
“Sinner has had a fantastic season… He was very unlucky to not make the Final Eight [at the Nitto ATP Finals] in Turin. He loves playing indoors on hard courts, so it will be a big test for me.”
Murray is trialling a new coach this week in Esteban Carril with a view to the Spaniard joining Jamie Delgado in the Scot’s team for next season, and Raducanu confirmed after her first-round defeat that her new coach will be German Torben Beltz.
“It’s obviously a great privilege to be working with such an experienced coach,” she said. “I’m definitely very excited to work with him throughout the pre-season and into next year. I’m feeling excited about all the work that is to come.
“I think he brings a lot of experience. Obviously he’s worked with [Angelique] Kerber, who’s such a great player and has done extremely well, won three slams. I think that experience definitely helps with someone as inexperienced as me.
“He can help guide me through, which I feel really confident about, and also he’s a really positive, cheerful guy who brings great energy to the team so I think that’s also important when you’re travelling on the road for quite a long time on the tour.”
Raducanu’s stellar season came to a disappointing end with defeat to 106th-ranked Wang, who played inspired tennis to win in two hours and 36 minutes, but the teenager was relatively upbeat.
“I thought it was a really high level match,” Raducanu said. “I thought Xinyu played extremely well, especially in that first set, and I’m proud of the way I fought to try to get back into the match.
“Everything was going her way and she was playing extremely well so a lot of credit to her for keeping that level out there on the court. In the third I had a hip spasm in the first point of that game and from there I was just fighting to try to stay in it.”