It was contrasting fortunes for the two US Open women’s finalists Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez at the Australian Open on Tuesday.
Raducanu, playing her first main draw match at Melbourne Park, silenced a few of the doubting Thomases with a 6-0, 2-6, 6-1 win over fellow New York champion Sloane Stephens.
Fernandez, who finished runner-up to the British teen at Flushing Meadows, bowed out with a 4-6, 2-6 loss to home wildcard Maddison Inglis.
Both the 19-year-olds had a lot riding on their back although Canadian Fernandez came in a bit under-prepared after pulling out of the tour event in Sydney last week.
But Raducanu, who extended her Grand Slam win-loss record to 11-0 after going from qualifying all the way to winning the title at the US Open, had critics questioning her credentials following early exits since that moment of glory — losing in R2 after first-round byes in Indian Wells and Linz last year and a first-round loss in Sydney in the lead up to the year’s first major.
Having achieved a number of firsts with her US Open, she had a few more of them going into the match as well: It was the first time she has been seeded in a major. And she was facing a grand slam-winner for the first time.
On the court, all the trivia and stats seemed to fade away as Raducanu went off the blocks smoothly and took the first set in 17 minutes.
To be fair to Stephens, who has 38 wins over top-20 players in her career, although she was making her 40th major appearance, the 28-year-old was playing her first match of the season after getting married to NFL player Jozy Altidore in the off-season.
The rust was obvious in the opening stanza but Stephens pulled back the second set and forced the decider.
It was the first set Raducanu had dropped at a major.
“When Sloane started fighting, I accepted that. I was expecting it because you don’t become a grand slam champion by simply rolling over,” said Raducanu, who had lost in the first-round in her only appearance in the junior championships in Melbourne in 2019.
“There were some long rallies in the second set and against Sloane, I knew I had to hit through her, not just trade shots.
“I knew I had to be aggressive and had to accept that there are going to be errors. I stayed positive and focussed on doing what worked for me in the first set.”
Raducanu, who aced her A-Levels in exams last year, picked up some vital lessons from her experienced rival in the course of the game.
“Sloane’s shots, her forehands on the run, the ball kept coming back. I wish I could learn from that and take inspiration moving forward,” she said.
The 17th seed, now coached by Torben Beltz, who was in Angelique Kerber’s box when the German triumphed in Melbourne in 2016, effortlessly shifted gears to race away to victory and book her second-round berth, a meeting with Montenegro’s Danka Kovinic.
The other major upset of the day saw Spaniard Sorana Cirstea knock out 2019 finalist and two-time Wimbledon Petra Kvitova 6-2, 6-2.