Emma Raducanu returned to the tennis courts in Seoul, and the British player battled past Peyton Stearns in a very close two-set match, which left her pleased with her performance.
Before touching down in Seoul, Raducanu last played at the US Open, where she didn't perform as well as she had hoped. She had some good momentum ahead of the US Open but elected to cut it short with some puzzling scheduling decisions.
After being beaten early at the US Open, the Brit admitted that she made a big mistake by doing that. What was done was done, and she could only look towards the future, and the Korea Open was her next focus.
This is the second time Raducanu has played at the event, and she wasn't given the best draw at the WTA 500 event. She got a solid player in the first round, and how the match unfolded proved that.
Stearns fought hard and kept it close, but Raducanu was still able to win in two tie-breaks, 7-6, 7-6. Speaking after the match, the Brit admitted that it was a complicated match because it was very humid and hot, which was expected.
It made the ball bounce quite a lot, which isn't how Raducanu likes it, as she loves to play fast, and having the ball bounce that high doesn’t make it easy to do so. She was still proud of the fight she showed.
"I'm proud to have made it through to the next round. It was tough. It was very humid, the ball was bouncing around a lot. It was a tough match to get through."
"I haven't played many matches in the last few months and Peyton, she's a really good player and on really good form. I'm really pleased."
Raducanu generally got lucky to be in the main draw because initially she wasn't part of it. Some late withdrawals by players such as Iga Swiatek, Elena Rybakina, Jessica Pegula, and Emma Navarro allowed her to find herself in the main draw, and after winning this match, she will have a chance to go deep.
It's a big event, as it's a WTA 500 tournament, and a good run in Seoul would earn her lots of points. The Brit needs to do that to avoid playing in the qualifiers, which she didn't want to do in Cincinnati earlier this year.
The North American hard-court series certainly proved that she's not the most open to playing the qualifiers, so getting a good run and plenty of points is certainly what she's after.
She also hasn't won a trophy since winning the US Open three years ago, and that's a streak that she would like to end. After getting past Stearns, the draw isn't the most complicated for Raducanu, with only a handful of players that could seriously trouble her, so in the right circumstances, she could do well.
Her next opponent will be Yuan Yue, a Chinese player ranked in the Top 40 who is quite capable of playing aggressive tennis. That won't be easy for Raducanu, but she needs matches like that one.
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