There are few experiences as valuable for a tennis player than staring down one of the best players in the world and seeing exactly how their game measures up. For Emma Raducanu, that opportunity arose on Monday afternoon against Aryna Sabalenka, now a multiple grand slam champion and desperate for more.
Strapped into the hot seat against the second-ranked player in full flow, Raducanu gave a strong account of both her quality and resilience in two competitive, high-quality sets before Sabalenka’s immense weight of shot and confidence in the decisive points guided her to the fourth round at Indian Wells with a 6-3, 7-5 win.
“It was a tough match, she played unbelievable tennis and I am super happy with the level today and I’m super happy to get through,” said Sabalenka.
Having started the week defending a large chunk of the remaining points on her ranking, Raducanu departs the Californian desert 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, still yet to defeat a top-10 opponent in her career, her record now 0-6 against the elite.
In her first two matches, Raducanu had been solid enough against the qualifier Rebeka Masarova and then she started well against Dayana Yastremska, the 30th seed, before the Ukrainian retired with pain in her stomach 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 keep up with her high level, and the mental fortitude needed to shrug off the many moments when she seems unplayable and to keep on searching for opportunities. Even on Saturday against Peyton Stearns, when Sabalenka faced triple match point on her opponent’s serve and four in total, she still managed to play those 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 and the contrast between their weight of shot and power was stark. Every time Raducanu missed her first serve, Sabalenka laid waste 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, trusted herself to take the ball early and redirect some of Sabalenka’s pace, and after holding serve, then returned brilliantly to generate four break points in Sabalenka’s subsequent service game. Raducanu put Sabalenka under clear pressure, but Sabalenka showed her quality by saving her best serving and shotmaking for the decisive points to close it out.
As Sabalenka eased to a 3-2 lead in the second set behind more dominant shotmaking, Raducanu again dug deep. She returned well and as more errors began to fly off the Sabalenka racket, Raducanu found more space to move inside the baseline, taking the ball early and imposing herself.
Throughout the second set, Raducanu went toe-to-toe with the Australian Open champion while looking 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.
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.
In the men’s draw, Cameron Norrie was narrowly defeated by a resurgent Gaël Monfils, with the Frenchman reaching the fourth round with a 6-7 (5), 7-6 (5), 6-3 win. At 37, Monfils will likely return to the top 50 next week as its oldest player.
