Emma Raducanu missed the chance to win her first title since her US Open triumph in 2021 after losing in straight sets to home favourite Sorana Cirstea in the Transylvania Open final.
Top seed Raducanu appeared to be feeling the effects of her marathon semi-final win against Ukraine’s Oleksandra Oliynykova on Friday, losing out to Cirstea 6-0 6-2 in little over an hour in Cluj.
Romanian Cirstea, 35 and in her final year on the Tour, sealed the fourth WTA title of her 20-year career.
Raducanu, whose father is Romanian, was pushed to the limit in her last-four clash against Oliynykova 24 hours earlier and had no answers against Cirstea’s big hitting.
The British number one came under early pressure, eventually losing her opening service game having saved five break points, and she went on to lose the opening set without winning a game in just 30 minutes.
After losing a fourth successive service game to fall 2-0 down in the second set, Raducanu broke Cirstea to love to win her first game, but then needed a medical timeout.
She recovered to then hold her serve for the first time to level it up at 2-2, but she could not maintain her momentum as Cirstea regrouped to take the next three games and lead 5-2.
Raducanu appeared to have nothing left in the tank as she served to stay in the match and in the next game, she lost her serve for a sixth time as Cirstea took the title.
At the Abu Dhabi Open, Czech qualifier Sara Bejlek sealed a surprise first WTA Tour win by beating Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-6 (5) 6-1 in the final. The 20-year-old will climb from 101 in the rankings into the top 50 after the best week of her career.
In contrast to Raducanu’s woes, British No.4 Katie Boulter won the final of the Ostrava Open in a three-set fight against Tamara Korpatsch. Boulter lost a close opening set, going down a break to hand the German a 7-5 win, but she rallied with a seriously impressive display over the next two sets to cruise to the title.
Boulter took the match 5-7 6-2 6-1, converting six of her nine break points and landing her first serve 84% of the time, leaving Korpatsch scrambling for answers.
Boulter had promised her coach, Michael Joyce, a trophy for his recently celebrated birthday, and she delivered in style with her victory over the world No. 124.
