British female tennis player, Emma Raducanu’s hopes of a first title since her US Open triumph in 2021 ended in misery as she was trounced by Romanian opponent, Sorana Cirstea, in the Transylvania Open final.
The British number one, who was the top seed, was second best throughout the match as 35-year-old Cirstea surged to a 6-0 6-2 victory in front of her home crowd.
Raducanu, who was on court for nearly three hours in her semi-final win over Oleksandra Oliynykova, yesterday, but against third seed, Cirstea, on Saturday, she lasted just an hour and three minutes.
The 23-year-old player managed to level the second set at 2-2 after having her blood pressure taken.
However, the mini revival was not enough to stop Cirstea claiming the fourth WTA Tour title of her 20-year career in emphatic fashion.
On the purple court in Cluj-Napoca, Raducanu looked tired and lacking in energy after her valiant effort to battle past Oliynykova in three sets.
Cirstea was sharper from the off, breaking Raducanu early and breezing through the rest of the first set to take it with a bagel.
The Romanian was 2-0 up in the second set when Raducanu finally put her first game on the board. She sat down slowly and called for medical attention, receiving words of encouragement from her trainer.
It looked like Raducanu’s final may come to a premature end, but she carried on with the match and took the next game to draw level.
However, Cirstea, who is in the final year of her career, regained control quickly, and a double fault by Raducanu at championship point ended any hopes of the Briton winning a second senior trophy.
Raducanu had plenty of support in Romania, as her father, Ion, is from Bucharest, and she commented after the defeat that the crowd had made her “feel at home this week”.
But securing her first silverware since that magical night in New York almost five years ago, when at the age of 18 she became the first qualifier in the Open era to win a Grand Slam singles title, is proving difficult.
She has been plagued with injuries and has struggled to find consistency on the WTA Tour. In January, she split with her latest coach, Francis Roig, after a second-round exit from the Australian Open.
Spaniard Roig, whom she had been working with since last summer, was the ninth person to coach Raducanu since 2021.
She is next scheduled to play the opening WTA 1,000 tournament of the season in Qatar, which starts on Sunday, and has been drawn against Colombia’s Camila Osorio in the first round.
