in a one-sided opening set<\/a> against Argentina\u2019s Solana Sierra, hitting zero winners and making 15 unforced errors.<\/p>\nRaducanu looked like she could be heading for one of the worst defeats of her career when she trailed 4-1 in the second set but she found a belated foothold, fighting back to force a tie-break before losing 6-0 7-6 (4).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was difficult,\u201d said the 23-year-old, who made 42 unforced errors in total. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve fully processed it yet, so it\u2019s hard to speak about the match right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I have to at least take the fact that, from a set and 4-1 down, I came back and made it competitive in the second set. I\u2019m pretty disappointed. Obviously I wanted to do better.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went on the court, I felt like the conditions were extremely lively and I felt like I wasn\u2019t able to trust my shots and didn\u2019t feel like I had control over the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think probably just a bit light on matches, a bit light on confidence coming into the tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first set happened super quickly, and it\u2019s not a nice feeling when the points and the games are going very, very fast. I\u2019m glad at least in the second set I was able to get a few games on the board.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raducanu had looked eager and confident in practice having reunited with US Open-winning coach Andrew Richardson earlier this week but she arrived in Paris having played only one match in two-and-a-half months after struggling with a post-viral illness.<\/p>\n
![\"Emma](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/24-0330035b451e46d18f3a5948dccca38e.jpg\")
Emma Raducanu was beaten in straight sets (Aurelien Morissard\/AP)<\/p>\n
She is still bothered by a lingering cough that was aggravated by the clay blown up off the court, and it will clearly take time for Raducanu to find a groove again after this latest break from the tour.<\/p>\n
The weight of everything she has been through since her life-changing win in New York in 2021 has taken a toll, and tears welled up in her eyes when she was asked how she had kept picking herself back up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult,\u201d she said. \u201cI think you need a lot of resilience. I think I\u2019m trying my best each day, and I think that\u2019s all I can ask of myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raducanu will now turn her attention to the grass-court season, where she has traditionally performed strongly, and the build-up to the HSBC Championships at Queen\u2019s Club starting on June 8.<\/p>\n
But she insisted she did not regret coming back for the end of the clay season, saying: \u201cIn hindsight, after the two matches I\u2019ve played, it could have been nice to have saved yourself the match like today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it will help me. I think I haven\u2019t played matches, and it\u2019s obviously very difficult coming in not having had any matches towards the back end of the clay season and these girls having tournament after tournament of confidence and wins. So I think that was pretty tricky for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t necessarily do as well as I\u2019d like to this year but I think the only way to face and improve how I\u2019m feeling is to go through the tough parts, to go through the pain of it, and hopefully come out on the other side better and stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[595,253,1122,1944,241,1946,115,207,1125,366,596,610,613,1126,1121,1123,609,220,1943,1945,113,28,578,1624],"class_list":["post-3211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-french-open","tag-adult","tag-argentina","tag-color-image","tag-day-1","tag-emma-raducanu","tag-facial-expression","tag-france","tag-french-open","tag-french-tennis-open","tag-grand-slam","tag-horizontal","tag-individual-event","tag-international-tennis-federation","tag-match-sport","tag-open-competition","tag-paris-france","tag-photography","tag-roland-garros","tag-round-one","tag-solana-sierra","tag-sport","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}