Emma Raducanu is off to the best possible start to her Miami Open campaign as the world No. 60 delivered her performance of the year to dismantle wildcard Sayaka Ishii 6-2 6-1.
Right out of the gate, the Briton tried to play aggressively and put pressure on the 188th-ranked Japanese, who was making her debut in Miami but also the WTA 1000 level. And the 2021 US Open champion pretty successfully executed her game plan as she was all over her opponent.
While Ishii managed to recover from an early break down and tie the first set to two games apiece, it didn’t help her much since Raducanu went on a major nine-game winning run to open a 6-2 5-0 lead before serving out for the match in the seventh game of the second set.
The 22-year-old was exceptional in all departments throughout the match as she fired six aces, won 78 percent of her first-serve points, and converted five of six of her break point chances.
Raducanu makes a winning return to Miami, faces Emma Navarro next
For Raducanu, this was her first match in Miami since 2023 – she missed last year’s tournament due to an injury. By ousting Ishii, the former world No. 10 set up a second-round meeting against No. 8 seed Navarro.
Meanwhile. this was also the Briton’s first win with her new coach Vladimir Platenik.
“We haven’t necessarily done that much yet, because he arrived very, very recently. So it was the day before the match where we don’t necessarily want to, like, change anything,” Raducanu explained after her debut with Platenik started with a loss two weeks ago in Indian Wells.
“So we haven’t actually started, I’d say, like, proper work. Yeah, from how I have met him, he’s very serious, he’s very professional, gets on with it. So yeah, we’ll see how it goes.”
Whatever they did in the meantime worked and Raducanu made a lightning start in Miami.
Tennis World USA