Emma Raducanu suffered another bad loss, this time around, against Anhelina Kalinina at the 2024 Qatar Open in Doha.
The Ukrainian hasn't played good tennis this year but found something here against Raducanu, who was very far from her top level. In fairness, Kalinina was striking the ball really well in the opening set and putting it into the corners.
Raducanu couldn't really do much with it as she was pushed around the court and tried too much with her baseline play. She doesn't really have much variety in her game, and once she gets pushed around the court, the Brit hardly finds an answer.
She totaled 15 unforced errors in the opening set and won only 10 points overall, suffering a bagel, losing the set 0-6. The second set didn't offer anything different in the first game as she also lost it easily.
Then she played a really solid game, hitting the ball aggressively and pulling the break back. From there, the match developed into a close affair as both players were able to hold serve.
Neither threatened too much, although Kalinina certainly had more chances. She would eventually get the break to take a 6-5 lead and was up 40-15 with two match points but Raducanu was able to save both with spectacular play, so the tie-break had to decide.
The tie-break itself was promising to be an exciting one, but ultimately, Raducanu wasn't really able to sustain the aggressive approach, missing too many balls and failing to find consistency.
She had great chances, though with one set point, but ultimately, she was not good enough when it mattered the most.
This match meant a lot to Kalinina, who emphatically celebrated it as she hadn't really had a good start to the year. As for Raducanu, she needs to work more on her tennis because she's still far away from where she needs to be. The final score was 6-0, 7-6(6) for Kalinina.
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