Emma Raducanu's backhand winner down the line arrived with a beaming smile and the roar of the Queen's Club crowd behind her—16 days after a first-round exit at Roland Garros that had left questions hanging over her form, the 2021 US Open champion was suddenly, unmistakably back.
Grass-court tennis rewards certainty and rhythm, and Raducanu found both on the Andy Murray Arena in London. After battling illness that had shadowed her past two matches, she faced Anna Blinkova knowing that a fast start would matter. She got it. Before rain even interrupted play, Raducanu had built a commanding 3-0 lead, and when the match resumed, that momentum never wavered.
The opening set was clinical. In just 20 minutes on court, Raducanu won the first set without dropping a game, claiming 25 of 31 points played while hitting 11 winners against only two unforced errors. It was the kind of tennis that reminded everyone why she had captured a Grand Slam title at nineteen—precise, aggressive, and almost impossible to resist. The contrast with her recent struggles was stark.
The second set told a more human story. Raducanu broke Blinkova's serve to begin strongly, but then four successive breaks of serve followed, tying the match at three games apiece as double-faults crept into her game. This is the tennis that had concerned observers: flashes of brilliance interrupted by lapses in concentration. But rather than unraveling, Raducanu steadied herself. She broke Blinkova again—this time helped by a fortuitous net cord, a small piece of luck that often finds players who refuse to surrender.
The decisive moment came when Raducanu held serve to win the match, closing it out with that backhand winner down the line on her second match point. She wrote "back home" with a heart on a TV camera lens as she left the court, a gesture that spoke to something deeper than a first-round victory. This was a player reclaiming her footing on the surface where she had flourished before, reasserting control after weeks of turbulence.
Raducanu, who reached the Queen's quarter-finals last year, will next face either Romania's Sorana Cirstea or Australia's Maddison Inglis in the second round. The journey from illness and disappointment to this kind of commanding performance is never linear, but on grass at Queen's, she has given herself something essential: momentum, and the confidence that comes with it.