Bad memories from the junior days came back to give Emma Raducanu a Halloween weekend haunting on Friday night as she crashed out of Transylvania Open.
A familiar figure in one-time prodigy Marta Kostyuk ignored her US Open champion status to give her a similar beating that she once did in their early teens.
Raducanu reported feeling lethargic afterwards and faded badly in taking 57 minutes to lose 6-2, 6-1 to her fellow teenager and world No 55. Not only was the British No 1 impetuous on her groundstrokes, she also donated an uncharacteristic seven double faults.
New tests are coming her way all the time, and this one involved tackling a near contemporary who might be less intimidated by her than an older player. It had that air, and the highly motivated 19-year-old Ukrainian rained winners, especially with her backhand down the line.
Instead of playing Simona Halep in the semi-finals Raducanu is now free to travel down to Bucharest to see her octogenarian grandmother Niculina, before heading back to England.
She was even unsure if she would be able to do that, saying: ‘I don’t know, because of the pandemic, I want to protect her and it’s a difficult situation her with the cases here.
‘I’ wasn’t physically feeling 100 per cent today, I was quite tired and lethargic, I knew that from practice this morning.
READ ALSONo fans for Emma Raducanu in Transylvania Open
‘I think it’s just the last six months it’s been a lot of learnings and I’ve experienced a lot with not so much gaps, I’m just adapting to the fast paced life of the tour.’
The idea that it was a hangover from junior days was dismissed: ‘I think we both come such a long way that it’s just a completely different match now, she just played very well and I didn’t deserve to win.’
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