Britain’s Emma Raducanu got her hard court swing in North America off to a magnificent start on Tuesday by upsetting the No 7 seed, Marta Kostyuk, at the Mubadala DC Citi Open in Washington, while Naomi Osaka and Venus Williams were also among those to reach the Last 16.
I think it’s a great match for a lot of spectators, which is great to be a part of. I felt the same way when I played Aryna [Sabalenka] at Wimbledon. That atmosphere was unbeatable for me. I think all the exposure I get to these top opponents… [Osaka] she’s won four Grand Slams, so an incredible achievement and incredible career so far. And she’s been playing really good tennis this year. Yeah, it will be a great test of my own game and myself. Emma Raducanu
Raducanu overcame a massive test against the Ukrainian, who had won 2 of their previous 3 encounters, recording a fine win, 7-6(4) 6-4, and the Brit next faces former World No 1 Osaka of Japan, who was a 6-2 7-5 winner over Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan, also on Tuesday.
“Extremely good win,” Raducanu said in her on-court interview. “Playing Marta first round is extremely difficult, and we’ve always had some tough matches.
“I’m happy with the way I fought through the first set and, in the second, stayed tough when I needed to.”
This win is significant for Raducanu as it moves her up to No 41 in the live rankings and, if she can come through her next match against Osaka, a 4-time Grand Slam champion, the 22-year will leap pass Katie Boulter, who lost in the 1st-round here, and reclaim the British No 1 ranking again.
Of more significance, though, is the chance to rise further in rankings to potentially secure a seeding for next month’s US Open.
Since Raducanu only played one tournament on hard courts ahead of the US Open last year, reaching the quarter-finals in Washington, she can now collect more points at the up-coming WTA 1000 events in Montreal and Cincinnati ahead of the final Grand Slam of the year at Flushing Meadows.
Tuesday’s win was impressive, in a draining match that required nearly 2 hours, and was as tight as they come, played in excruciating heat, with both winning 48 points in the opening set, which consumed 70 gruelling minutes.
Kostyuk held the upper hand for much of the way, coming within 2 points of winning the set on two different occasions, as both managed a single break of serve, and arrived at the tiebreak.
The Ukrainian, under relentless pressure and hindered by a double-fault, immediately fell into a 4/0 hole, but just as quickly, following a pair of forehand winners, it was back to 4/4 when Kostyuk donated a wild mishit, and Raducanu followed with some stellar defence, and a laser backhand winner down the line.
On the first set point, Kostyuk overcooked a forehand return, and Raducanu had escaped, taking the momentum into the second set, when the Brit won the first 3 games before the Ukrainian again levelled at 4-4 with some spirited play.
Raducanu, though, held here nerve for 5-4 when the Ukrainian missed a backhand, then broke serve for the win, converting her 2nd match point when Kostyuk’s forehand flew wide.
In all, Raducanu converted just one more break point than Kostyuk in the match, which proved to make all the difference.
Facing Osaka for a place in the quarter-finals will be a popcorn match, especially since, surprisingly, they have never played each other before.
“I think it’s a great match for a lot of spectators, which is great to be a part of,” Raducanu told reporters. “I felt the same way when I played Aryna [Sabalenka] at Wimbledon. That atmosphere was unbeatable for me. I think all the exposure I get to these top opponents… she’s won four Grand Slams, so an incredible achievement and incredible career so far.
“And she’s been playing really good tennis this year. Yeah, it will be a great test of my own game and myself.”
Former World No 1 Naomi Osaka of Japan was a straight sets winner over Yulia Putintseva in Washington, and will meet Emma Raducanu on Thursday
WTAtennis.com
From 2018 through 2021, Raducanu and Osaka won 3 of the 4 US Open titles, but both have struggled in recent years to recapture the form that enabled those wins.
27-year old Osaka missed the entire 2023 season to focus on the birth of her first child, and her record this year now stands at 21-10, but the Japanese has let her frustration show at times, most recently after falling in the 3rd-round at Wimbledon to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, and, more forcefully, after losing in the 1st-round of the French Open to Paula Badosa.
“As time goes on, I feel like I should be doing better,” Osaka told reporters in Paris. “I hate disappointing people.”
Against Putintseva on Tuesday, though, back on her favoured hard court, Osaka was solid, firing 8 aces, winning 89% of her first serves, and scoring 4 breaks of serve.
Osaka acknowledged the degree of comfort returning to hard courts: “Honestly, yes,” she said. “But I also had a realization, the other day, that I have to be a little bit more confident in myself, while also not putting pressure on myself, so it’s a little strange.
“I think I’m the type of person that, I always feel like everyone else is really good, and, sometimes, that puts a lot of doubt in myself.
“The other day I was trying to tell myself that I won a couple of Slams on this surface for a reason, so I need to believe in myself a lot more. I’m trying to see where that mentality takes me.”
For now, it has taken her across the net from Raducanu.
“I’m always a person that loves when people are entertained,” Osaka said of the upcoming match. “So I would say I’m excited about it. I’ve never played her before, so for me, that’s something really cool too.
“Because I have seen her, I guess when she first did well at Wimbledon before she won the US Open, like moments like that, and I knew she was a good player. So I guess for our paths to finally cross is really cool.”
A delighted Venus Williams won her first singles match since March 2024 when she beat Peyton Stearns in Washington on Tuesday night
WTAtennis.com
Meanwhile, 45-year old Venus Williams’ return to singles play was a victorious 6-3 6-4 win over her American compatriot, 23-year-old Peyton Stearns, sealing it on her 6th match point after which she raised both arms as her game face relaxed into a beaming, gleeful smile on Tuesday night.
No woman of her age had won a tour-level singles match since Martina Navratilova posted one at Wimbledon in 2004, aged 47.
“The community here that supports me so much, it’s like playing at home,” said Williams, who next faces 5th seed Magdalena Frech from Poland in the Last 16 on Thursday. “I’ve been coming to DC for a long time. I see a lot of people — like this gentleman back here who said, ‘I first met you when you were 13.’ And I remember my first time coming here: I was about 13 years old.”
Williams had not played a match since the Miami Open in March 2024, and arrived here as a wild-card who has now advanced to round 2 in both the singles and doubles competitions.
Technically, the win was an upset, but, after she started poorly against Stearns, losing every point of the first game, she quickly settled in, and as she inched closer to the finish line, the crowd willed her on, through a marathon 9th and 10th games of the second set.
Looking all of 45 at times, Williams still exceeded 110 mph on her serve and recorded 9 aces.
Qualifier Taylor Townsend defeated Tatjana Maria after trailing 0-4 in the second set, and coming back to win 6 of the last 7 games
WTAtennis.com
Also on Tuesday, qualifier Caroline Dolehide was a 7-6(3) 5-7 6-3 winner over two-time 2025 WTA titlist McCartney Kessler, in a match between two Americans that ran more than two-and-a-half hours; while Anna Kalinskaya defeated qualifier Kamilla Rakhimova, 6-2 6-3, in a match between two Russians.
Taylor Townsend, an American qualifier who is better known for her doubles prowess, currently sitting at No 2 in the doubles rankings, right behind her regular partner Katerina Siniakova, defeated Germany’s Tatjana Maria, 6-4 7-5, having trailed 0-4 in the second set, and coming back to win 6 of the last 7 games.
In a match between mothers on tour, the American, currently ranked 97 in singles, saved 8 of 10 break points, and broke 37-year old Maria’s serve 4 times.
Maria had an astonishing run last month on the grass at The Queen’s Club, where she took down 4 Top 15 players – Karolina Muchova, Elena Rybakina, Madison Keys and Amanda Anisimova – to take the WTA 500 title.
“I think I did a really great job of managing her difficult style of play,” Townsend said after their match. “We don’t play a lot of players that play that way, who hit slices that consistently. It was difficult to gauge my shots and not overplay. That’s what was happening in the second set.
“I was able to just reel it in and go inward. I was getting a little frustrated — I’m not going to lie. That’s a key of her game, to frustrate her opponent into making you feel like you’re playing bad.”
No 6 seed Sofia Kenin beat home favourite Hailey Baptiste in an all-American affair in which Baptiste served for the second set
WTAtennis.com
In the 2nd-round of singles, Townsend will face No 6 seed Sofia Kenin, a 6-3 7-6(4) winner over Hailey Baptiste in another all-American affair in which local favourite Baptiste served for the second set, but was broken.
Baptiste also took a 2/0 lead in the tiebreak, before Kenin pulled away, winning with a big forehand return.
Kenin holds a 4-2 head-to-head edge over Townsend, having won their most recent encounter, 7-6(5) 6-2, in the 1st-round of Wimbledon.
Later, in doubles, Townsend and first-time partner Zhang Shuai from China, were 6-3 6-1 winners over Spain’s Cristina Bucsa & Nicole Melichar-Martinez from the USA, sending them into a Wednesday quarter-final match against Williams & Baptiste.
“I honestly commend [Williams] so much for being out here,” Townsend said. “It was 92 degrees and she was doing [practice] 2-on-1s with some young guys. That’s why she’s a champion.
“I don’t have any expectations, I’m just going to go and play tennis. I’m going to enjoy it – I think it’s going to be fun. But I’ve still got a job to do.”
AloJapan.com