Emma Raducanu falls, Leylah Fernández triumphs in Indian Wells

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Emma Raducanu, who rose to tennis stardom after an impressive run to the US Open championship last month, lost her first match as a Grand Slam champion on Friday.

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The 17-seeded 18-year-old British player fell 6-2, 6-4 to Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovich, number 100, in the second round of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California.

Raducanu received a goodbye in the first round of the tournament.

Sasnovich, 27, said after the game: “I understand I had to go for it, play 100 percent. I know Emma just won the US Open and I lost there in the first round, so a little different. “

Raducanu said: “Today he was better than me and he deserved to win. There will be disappointment after any loss. I didn’t go in there pushing myself. He played a great game. You could tell he had more experience than me. She executed her game plan better than I did. She deserved it.”

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Ranked 150 by reaching the US Open, Raducanu won 10 straight games to claim the title. She had to navigate three qualifying matches first, then went through the main draw, becoming the first woman to win the US Open without dropping a set since Serena Williams in 2014.

He subsequently withdrew from the Chicago Fall Tennis Classic before resuming action on Friday in the southern California desert.

Leylah Fernández, the 19-year-old Canadian who lost to Raducanu in the US Open final, won her first match in Indian Wells on Friday. The 23rd seed edged out France’s Alize Cornet 6-2, 6-3.

In other second-round action, second-seeded Polish Iga Swiatek won 79.2 percent of her first serve points and posted a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Croatian Petra Martic.

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Swiatek won nine of the first 10 games en route to victory in 71 minutes.

“I just wanted to be aggressive from the start and not let her play her game,” Swiatek said. “In the second set, I lost focus during one game and she broke me pretty quickly so I knew I had to keep going and not stop a second time.”

Swiatek will face 25th seed Veronika Kudermetova, who posted a 6-2, 6-3 victory over compatriot Liudmila Samsonova.

Fourth-seeded Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina scored a 6-2, 7-5 win over Czech Tereza Martincova. Russia’s ninth-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova achieved a 6-3, 6-1 victory over American Madison Keys, and number 11 Simona Halep of Romania recorded a 7-6 (2), 6-1 victory over Marta Kostyuk from Ukraine.

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Lucky loser Jasmine Paolini of Italy scored a surprise by beating 14th-seeded Belgian Elise Mertens 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in 2 hours and 49 minutes.

Latvian 24-seeded Jelena Ostapenko scored an easy 6-3, 6-0 victory over Taiwan’s Su-Wei Hsieh, while No. 27 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus advanced as Magda Linette of Poland retired with a ankle injury while trailing 7-5, 3-0.

Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania edged No. 31 Jil Teichmann of Switzerland 7-5, 6-1, and No. 32 Sorana Cirstea of ​​Romania recorded a 6-2, 6-3 win over Japan’s Misaki Doi.

The Americans Shelby Rogers and Jessica Pegula, the Czech Petra Kvitova and the Kazakh Yulia Putintseva also won.