There are few experiences as valuable for a tennis player than staring down one of the best and seeing exactly where their level falls. For Emma Raducanu, that occasion came in the face of Aryna Sabalenka, now a multiple grand slam champion and desperate for more.
Placed in the hot seat against a Sabalenka in full flow, Raducanu gave a strong account of both her quality and resilience in two competitive sets before Sabalenka’s immense power, weight of shot and her intention to dominate every ball guided the No 2 seed to the fourth-round at Indian Wells with a tough 6-3, 7-5 win.
Having started the week defending a large chunk of the remaining points on her ranking, Raducanu departs after putting together her most positive week of the year as she continues to look for rhythm and confidence following surgery in both hands and an ankle last year. She is, however, yet to beat a top-10 opponent, her record now 0-6 against the elite.
In her opening round against the qualifier Rebeka Masarova, Raducanu was solid enough and then in her second round against Dayana Yastremska, the 30th seed, she started well before the Ukrainian retired with stomach pains while trailing 4-0 in the opening set.
But facing Sabalenka is an enormous step up, both in terms of the quality and intensity required to perform at such a high level, and the mental fortitude. Even on Saturday against Peyton Stearns, when Sabalenka faced triple match point on her opponent’s serve, she still managed to play those four points on her terms before turning the match around.
Raducanu started well, playing two tidy service games to settle into the match. But as Sabalenka found her range and rhythm off the ground, practically every point was decided on her racket. The contrast between their weight of shot and power was stark. Every time Raducanu missed her first serve, Sabalenka laid waste to her second and winners flowed freely.
Even as she trailed 2-5 and 15-40, the set moving away at speed, Raducanu fought hard. She found first serves, she trusted herself to take the ball early and redirect some of Sabalenka’s awesome power and after holding serve, she then returned brilliantly to generate four break points in Sabalenka’s subsequent service game. Raducanu put Sabalenka under clear pressure and nearly got back into the set, but the No 2 showed her quality by saving her best serving and shotmaking for the decisive points to close it out.
As Sabalenka quickly broke serve and took a 3-2 lead in the second set behind more dominant shotmaking, Raducanu similarly dug deep. She returned brilliantly and as more errors began to fly off the Sabalenka racket, Raducanu had more space to move inside the baseline, to take the ball early and to impose herself on Sabalenka.
Throughout the second set, the pair went toe-to-toe, and Raducanu looked increasingly comfortable from the baseline. But Sabalenka is playing the best tennis of her life these days, full of such confidence and inner belief, and when she needed her best, she found it and closed out Raducanu in two tight sets.
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Elsewhere, in her final match as a teenager, Coco Gauff, the US Open champion, reached the fourth round with a 6-2, 7-6 (5) win over Lucia Bronzetti and overnight, Angelique Kerber and Caroline Wozniacki, both former No 1s, grand slam champions and now mothers both reached the fourth round, where they will play each other and rekindle their old rivalry.
In the men’s draw, Cameron Norrie was narrowly defeated by a resurgent Gaël Monfils after over three hours, with the Frenchman reaching the fourth round with a 6-7, 7-6 (5), 6-3 win. At 37, Monfils will likely return to the top 50 next week as its oldest player.
