There was a moment when the fight simply seemed to slip out of Emma Raducanu. When all the stress of the last year, the pain, the disappointment, seemed to coalesce in a silent sigh of acceptance.
First point of game eight, second set. Raducanu was a set down, and trailing 4-3. The champion was at the net, but had drawn her opponent there, too.
Alize Cornet tried to play a forehand pass but was hurried, reaching. The ball clipped the top of the net, hard, but instead of dropping on her side, it flipped up, high, over Raducanu’s stance as she shaped to volley, but dropping like a stone, safe before the baseline. Of course it did.
There was a moment when the fight simply seemed to slip out of Emma Raducanu on Tuesday
French veteran Alize Cornet beat the defending US Open champion in straight sets
Raducanu turned to look at the landing ball, well beyond recovery, and her slender shoulders slumped.
She lost that game, and the next one, and the young queen of Queens exited into the night.
The defence of her crown had lasted 102 minutes, including the statutory medical time out. Blisters, again, the same as in Australia.
She had spent three minutes longer on the practice court prior to the match than she did in the tournament proper. It was her first opening round departure at a Grand Slam, and the first sets she had ever lost at a US Open.
But the Brit will always be remembered as the teenager who won the US Open from nowhere
Raducanu hurried away, despite the expectant presence of autograph hunters. Her farewell wave was cursory, too. There comes a point at which the gloss from a year ago wears off.
Raducanu will always be the teenager who won the US Open from nowhere, she will always have that fairytale narrative but last night it will have felt a lot longer away than 12 months.
Sit down and reflect a few weeks from now and this experience can be rationalised as another gradient on the learning curve, all part of the apprenticeship she is now enduring having joined the firm as chief executive officer.
Yet in the here and now, this looked painful, and not just the bandages on her hand.
The 19-year-old took a medical time-out at the end of the first set after struggling with blisters
Raducanu is a ferocious competitor, but so are a lot of other women on tour, Cornet among them.
She has the current record for the most competitive Slam appearances in the women’s game – this was her 63rd – and it showed.
Raducanu didn’t play badly but Cornet was superior. It was exactly what was expected from her, a performance of guts, resilience and no little skill.
It was a display that reminded in no small way of peak Andy Murray. Cornet found ways to keep the ball in play and wait for a Raducanu mistake.
Raducanu’s US Open defense was cut short by an early exit at the Louis Armstrong Stadium
She was smart tactically, athletic and determined. She took her opportunities, used all of those 63 Slams to exhaust Raducanu’s morale.
Cornet said she was hanging in there physically at the end, but it was Raducanu who looked sapped of all energy.
There were glimpses of her enormous talent, as there always are, but she was worn down by an older, cannier tennis brain. It is not the first time it has happened to a teenager on the circuit, and it won’t be the last.
And no doubt Raducanu’s detractors will be heading to the keyboards and the airwaves on Wednesday morning.
So a little perspective. It is still possible to find footage of Raducanu playing Katherine Barnes at the Connaught Club last year.
Cornet said she was hanging in there physically, but it was Raducanu who looked sapped
It is her first match after taking her A levels and just 112 days later she will lift the US Open trophy. The observant viewer may notice something. There is no umpire. The level Raducanu was playing at that stage in 2021, players make the calls and rely on mutual honesty.
At the change of ends, Barnes, a county player, assumes the responsibility of documenting the score using flip cards, in case anyone is interested, or watching. No-one is interested, or watching.
So it is not such a disappointment that at this stage in her career Raducanu is losing to one of the tournament’s feistier players, who has reached at least the fourth round in all four Grand Slam tournaments and was once ranked 11th.
It is more that what she did last year was a gold-plated miracle, unprecedented in the sport and has elevated expectations to impossible levels. It is akin to expecting Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester team to not just retain the league title the following season, but land the Champions League, too.
Of course there is disappointment, but let’s be realistic about what was going to happen next
Of course there is disappointment about the way her results have gone since her previous appearance here, and she will feel that more than anyone.
But let’s be realistic about what was going to happen next. Maybe consider the paths taken by all of the other qualifiers who won Grand Slam tournaments. Apologies – there aren’t any.
Later, Raducanu appeared looking, for the first time, like the smaller version of herself. Baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, her face in the shadows, she seemed smaller, slighter; a teenager, in fact. She would drop, hugely, down the rankings now.
With that would come the alleviation of pressure, but also other complications. She would no longer be protected from the seeded players, the pathways would get harder to negotiate.
Consider paths taken by other qualifiers who won Grand Slams. Apologies – there aren’t any
Baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, her face in the shadows, she seemed smaller, slighter
Yet such has been the strain of being US Open champion so young, Raducanu was deciding to take the positives.
‘This time last year I would have taken the top 100 at the end of my first professional year, so it’s nice to start fresh,’ she said. ‘So on one hand I’m sad to leave here in the first round, but on the other I’m happy with a clean slate and a target off my back.’
The learning continues, mind, and this is a tough school.
A vicious wind blew through the Louis Armstrong Stadium early on in the match, making serving from its south end in particular hard to control.
Raducanu never got a handle on it, Cornet did. ‘She just dealt with it better,’ the former champion admitted.
‘I struggled to get to grips with it, really.’
She sounded as if she couldn’t wait to catch up, to get all that wisdom Cornet held inside her with such ease. If it was as simple as that, mind, anyone could do it.
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