Emma Raducanu says she is happy ‘on and off the court’ after achieving a breakthrough victory at the Miami Open on Monday.
The former US Open champion eased to a 6-1, 6-3, win over Amanda Anisimova to seal a place in the quarter-finals of a WTA 1000 event for the first time in her career. Raducanu has dropped one set in four matches played so far in the tournament, also beating eighth seed Emma Navarro earlier in the draw. The resurgence comes after a roller-coaster few weeks on the Tour for the Brit who had lost four out of five matches played coming into Miami.
“I feel comfortable. I feel like in my environment, in my surroundings with the people I’m with, I feel pretty relaxed, and I can be myself and expressive and true to myself. That’s important for me.” Raducanu said of finding her form.
“I’m really happy with how things are on and off the court right now and just also happy that I was able to kind of transfer on to the match court.”
Raducanu believes she is playing better than at the start of the year when she reached the Australian Open third round before losing to Iga Swiatek. So what is the reason for her resurgence?
“Circumstances change all the time, but for me the biggest thing I’m proud of is just finding the competitive spirit and being there for every ball and drawing that out of myself,” she explained.
“I think that’s kind of been missing in the last few months and even a few years at times.
“I think that’s the biggest win for me is just feeling a lot of hunger, feeling on the court competitive, wanting to run down every ball, and that’s the biggest win I would say from this week.”
It is the first time since her Grand Slam triumph in 2021 that Raducanu has managed to win four matches in a row in the same draw. As a result, she is likely to return back into the world’s top 50 when the WTA rankings are updated next Monday. She has been ranked as high as 10th in the world.
“I think having been through a lot of challenges and a lot of difficulties. To have kind of played the way I have this week and felt the way I have on the court is the biggest win.” She said,
“Feeling competitive, happy, relaxed on and off the court has been the biggest thing that I can take away and be happy about.”
Raducanu will next play fourth seed Jessica Pegula, who is the last top-five player she has defeated. That was last year in Eastbourne.
