{"id":289408,"date":"2025-07-25T02:06:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T02:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/289408\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T02:06:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T02:06:12","slug":"emma-raducanu-makes-classy-naomi-osaka-gesture-after-blitzing-rival-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/289408\/","title":{"rendered":"Emma Raducanu makes classy Naomi Osaka gesture after blitzing rival | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emma Raducanu<\/a> bulldozed four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka<\/a> at the Citi Open, with the Brit progressing into the quarter-finals of the tournament in a 6-4, 6-2 victory. It was the first time the two titans of the women’s game had gone head-to-head, with Raducanu, fresh from a strong Wimbledon<\/a>, dominating the contest throughout.<\/p>\n

Raducanu, who beat Marta Kostyuk in her first match<\/a>, got her nose in front in the fifth game of the opening set and never looked back. A lightning-quick 38-minute opener was backed up by an even more dominant second set, which saw Raducanu break the Osaka serve on two separate occasions.<\/p>\n

Speaking on court after the win, Raducanu praised the quality of her opponent in a classy gesture, saying: \u201cI felt it was going to be a really difficult match. Naomi\u2019s won four Slams, been world No.1, won the Masters, she\u2019s so dangerous. On hard courts, she\u2019s particularly comfortable. I knew I was gonna have to play really well.”<\/p>\n

Play well she did, with Raducanu holding her serve all game and avoiding any break points. The 2021 US Open<\/a> winner credited her ability to bounce back on the second serve as a driving force behind her victory, admitting she’d highlighted a specific weakness in Osaka’s game.<\/p>\n

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Raducanu said: \u201cIf you float the second serve in, Naomi is going to crunch it and I\u2019ll be behind in the point, so I had to trust my abilities in the second serve and just the one double fault in the second game. So I was pretty pleased with that. But I knew it was going to be a difficult match before I went on court, the atmosphere was really good, so [turning to the crowd] thank you for everyone’s support.”<\/p>\n

On competing in the Citi Open, she added: “I love competing in D.C, this tournament is incredible, the city is incredible, the organisation as well. I always receive amazing support here, again in the quarter-finals, it’s a great achievement for me.”<\/p>\n

Raducanu’s reward for defeating Osaka is a match-up against Maria Sakkari, who beat home-crowd favourite Emma Navarro and British No.1 Katie Boulter<\/a> en route to the last eight. Their quarter-final clash, scheduled for Friday afternoon, will also come on Sakkari’s 30th birthday, with Raducanu no doubt hoping to be a party pooper.<\/p>\n

On the prospect of spoiling the Greek star’s birthday, Raducanu replied: “I’m not sure [if she’ll ruin Sakkari’s birthday], but we’ve played a few times in the past. I think these conditions really suit her, they’re quite lively. I think she enjoys playing here, she’s made the final here and I’m expecting a really tough match.<\/p>\n

“She took out the second seed yesterday, so she’s in good form. I just need to rest up, recover, get out there and do my best.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emma Raducanu bulldozed four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka at the Citi Open, with the Brit progressing into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[105433,1070,18209,37655,107909,107911,107910,79,1068,5838,31638,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-289408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-citi-open","9":"tag-emma-raducanu","10":"tag-maria-sakkari","11":"tag-naomi-osaka","12":"tag-raducanu-news","13":"tag-raducanu-osaka","14":"tag-raducanu-score","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-tennis","17":"tag-tennis-news","18":"tag-tennis-scores","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}