Things seemed to be running smoothly for Emma Raducanu for much of her Wednesday afternoon in Melbourne. An early break lead provided her with a chance to serve out the first set of her second round match. Things were falling into place.
However, she had earned that lead simply by scrapping from behind the baseline and was never truly comfortable with her strokes. Under pressure in the decisive moment of the match, her forehand crumbled as she relinquished the lead and eventually fell 7-6 (3), 6-2 to Anastasia Potapova.
Having only lost to grand slam champions inside the top 10 at the slams last year – Elena Rybakina, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek twice – this defeat to world No 55 Potapova is Raducanu’s worst first-week defeat by ranking since the 2024 Australian Open, which was her comeback major after an eight-month injury layoff.
Not for the first time, Raducanu’s preparation for the Australian Open was badly affected by injury after she was sidelined for much of her off-season. It has clearly played a significant role in her inability to find her top level this month.
However, there are other problems to resolve. Last year, one of Raducanu’s most significant improvements was the quality of her forehand and she found success by attempting to dictate rallies with that stroke more than ever before. This year, her forehand has been noticeably different, with a longer and higher stroke. Against Potapova her forehand was again erratic, as the Briton struggled to deflect pace and it constantly dropped short. She hit 19 forehand unforced errors in two sets compared with just six backhand unforced errors.
Raducanu had noticed a difference in her forehand swing but she described those changes as unintentional: “It’s because I have been working on certain things with [her coach] Francisco [Roig], and on a particular shot, it works well, but we didn’t really practise a different type of shot, which doesn’t work so well,” she said. “It’s probably because we haven’t done the latter. It’s just drifted in that way. It’s not something I want to continue.”
After she recovers from her time in Melbourne, Raducanu will return to competition with the WTA 250 event in Cluj, Romania. The next step for Raducanu and Roig will be to understand how to extract the best from her forehand again.
This had been billed as one of the more notable second-round matches. Potapova is a talented shotmaker with a career-high ranking of No 21. Despite the one-dimensional nature of her game, she is an excellent ball-striker and relentless in her determination to dominate opponents. However, the 24-year-old has largely failed to live up to the early hype after being one of the best junior players of her generation, winning junior Wimbledon in 2016 and reaching No 1.
Potapova’s victory earns her a shot at Sabalenka in the third round after the No 1 seed and two-time champion in Melbourne eased to victory with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Bai Zhuoxuan.
Potapova has been competing with a broken finger, which she describes as another reason to be relaxed and enjoy her time against the best player in the world. “I have nothing to lose. I’m in the third round. I tried my best. I’m still enjoying tennis. I will just try to go there and make the best out of it,” she said.
This strong victory may redirect attention from the buildup to the tournament. Last month, the Russian-born player announced that she had become an Austrian citizen, plagiarising the statement released by her former compatriot, Daria Kasatkina, when she switched to Australian residency last March.
To the bemusement of Kasatkina herself, Potapova changed just two words of Kasatkina’s original before publishing the statement as her own: Australia to Austria and Melbourne to Vienna. Potapova was unapologetic about her lack of originality: “I don’t find anything wrong with that because you cannot say it in a better way. And why not? And, yeah, it was perfect words. I loved it. We loved it with my team, with everyone.”
Arthur Fery’s stellar breakthrough tournament came to a difficult end as he suffered a 7-6 (4), 6-1, 6-3 loss to Tomás Martin Etcheverry of Argentina. In his first grand slam as a direct entrant into the qualifying draw, the British player had navigated three matches before securing his first career win in Melbourne against Flavio Cobolli, the 20th seed.
Fery fought well in an intense, high-quality opening set but after failing to close out his chances in set two, he faded quickly. Fery will rise from his ranking of No 186 to a high of around No 150.
