Emma Raducanu said she should have played more matches before the US Open after the former champion lost 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 to American Sofia Kenin in the first round on Tuesday.
Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open winner, put in an aggressive performance with six aces and 45 winners to secure a meeting with compatriot Jessica Pegula in the next round.
Britain’s Raducanu has struggled to recapture the magic of her fairytale run through New York three years ago, when she became the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam.
She skipped key preparation events in Toronto and Cincinnati and took a different approach to her preparation for the final major of the year, but struggled to find her footing when Kenin swept the first set.
“I probably would have preferred to play a little more,” Raducanu said. “When I have a lot of games, like any other player, I feel really good, like everything is automatic. So yes, I think I can learn from that.”
Raducanu, who had raised hopes of a renaissance by reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon this year, raised her level in the second set and made the decisive break in the fifth game.
She broke Kenin again with a forehand winner to close the set, but then ran out of steam and dropped her serve with a double fault in the fifth game of the deciding set before Kenin sealed the victory with a hold to love in the final game.
“It was a very tough match – Emma is a former champion here, so of course I kind of felt that,” Kenin said.
“I felt like I had to give it my all to win.”
Raducanu has not won a match at Flushing Meadows since her only major title. She was eliminated in the first round in 2022 and missed the tournament a year later due to injury.
She became briefly emotional during a post-match press conference, but said she would try to take some positives from her recent major campaign.
“I’m depressed. I’m sad,” she said. “Of course, this is a tournament where I really want to do well.”
