Emma Raducanu battled hard against Tereza Martincova at the 2022 Billie Jean King Cup, and ultimately, she was rewarded with a win in her first professional clay contest.
The Brit entered this contest with only a handful of victories on the WTA Tour in 2022, and many fans questioned her commitment to tennis. But only recently, the Brit claimed that she's focusing on improvements, and soon after that proved her critics wrong.
Raducanu elected to represent her nation in the Billie Jean King Cup qualifiers against the Czech Republic, and the challenge was big. Her first professional match on clay against a nation that gave us some of the biggest clay specialists on the WTA Tour.
Tereza Martincova was the challenger and Raducanu took it head-on. She took some time to adjust to the surface but looked far more comfortable than most would anticipate.
Martincova did waste a huge chance to win the first set by wasting a set point on serve, but still, the Brit battled hard, and she was rewarded. It was an inspired effort from Raducanu, who looked more engaged than before this season.
A clear motivator was the chance to prove herself to a community that started to doubt her as well as her colleagues who took some shots in the prior weeks. Things were not very good in the second set.
She opened with a 0-3 deficit, which became a 1-4 deficit, and then she started channeling her inner US Open champion. Martincova's dip in focus allowed Raducanu to battle back, and she took it.
She won four games in a row to take a 5-4 lead. That ninth game was crucial as she saved several break points. At 6-5, she got some errors from Martincova, setting herself up for the match point, which she converted by forcing another mistake, winning the match 7-5, 7-5.