US OPEN champion Emma Raducanu swept into the third round of the Madrid Open on Sunday with a 6-2, 6-1 demolition of Marta Kostyuk while Spain’s Sara Sorribes Tormo stunned four-times major champion Naomi Osaka 6-3, 6-1.
The 19-year-old Raducanu clinched 11 of the final 12 games against Ukrainian fellow teenager Kostyuk to win consecutive matches for only the second time in a tournament this season.
“I’m definitely very happy with my performance today. Marta is a great opponent, we played several times in the juniors and then once last year,” said Raducanu.
“I knew it was always going to be a really tough battle so I went out there trying to be really aggressive and it definitely paid off.”
The Briton broke Kostyuk in the opening game and controlled the match from the baseline while being rarely troubled on serve, a feature of her game that has often been a cause for concern since her triumph at Flushing Meadows last year.
Raducanu will face another Ukrainian, Anhelina Kalinina, in the next round of the clay-court event after the 25-year-old brushed aside world number nine Garbine Muguruza 6-3, 6-0.
Osaka struggled for rhythm and was dominated by Sorribes Tormo, who mixed her game up to devastating effect to notch up a second career victory over the Japanese former world number one.
There was another upset earlier in the day when unseeded Bianca Andreescu, who returned to action in Stuttgart only last month following a long-term injury, crushed Australian Open finalist Danielle Collins 6-1, 6-1 in just over an hour.
“I did not expect for it to go like that at all, but I stuck to my game plan and it worked so I’m very happy,” said Andreescu, who won the 2019 US Open but is now ranked 111th in the world.
Andreescu will take on Jessica Pegula next after the American defeated Kaia Kanepi 6-3, 6-3 while Russia’s Daria Kasatkina came from behind to knock out fourth seed Maria Sakkari 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 and set up a clash with Sorribes Tormo. — Reuters
