Defending champion Emma Raducanu crashes out in US Open first round

Defending champion Emma Raducanu of Britain was sent crashing out of the US Open in the first round

Photo : AP

Defending champion Emma Raducanu of Britain was sent crashing out of the US Open in the first round on Tuesday, losing in straight sets to France’s Alize Cornet.

Eleventh seed Raducanu became only the third women’s defending champion in history to lose in the first round as Cornet crafted a scintillating performance to seal a deserved 6-3, 6-3 victory on Louis Armstrong Stadium.

The 32-year-old Frenchwoman, ranked 40th in the world, drew on all her experience to outfox the 19-year-old Raducanu, boldly pulling off a string of exquisite drop shots at key moments to set up the victory.

Raducanu had been the darling of the Flushing Meadows crowd last year, when she made history by emerging from qualifying to claim a fairytale maiden Grand Slam.

That win marked the first time ever a qualifier had lifted a Grand Slam title.

But she has since struggled to recapture the form that swept her to an improbable championship crown last year. In three previous Grand Slams this year she had gone no further than the second round.

Her exit on Tuesday sees her join Angelique Kerber in 2017 and Svetlana Kuznetsova in 2005 as the only defending US Open champions who have fallen at the first hurdle.

A finely balanced contest was settled by Cornet’s ability to show greater composure when it mattered as Raducanu froze.

Cornet had broken Raducanu to lead 4-2 in the first set, only for the Briton to claw her way back in the next game with a break that made it 4-3.

But Raducanu squandered a 40-15 lead on her next service game before double-faulting to gift Cornet a break which left the Frenchwoman 5-3 up and serving for the set. Cornet duly held serve to seize the advantage.

In the second set, Raducanu looked poised to tie it up after breaking for a 3-1 lead.

But once again she was unable to make her advantage count, and it was Cornet, with one of several sublime drop shots scattered throughout her victory, who broke back.

Cornet held to love for 3-3 and then broke Raducanu twice more to seal a win which sets up a second round meeting with the Czech Republic’s Katerina Siniakova.