{"id":85884,"date":"2025-07-23T12:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T12:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/85884\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T12:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T12:20:10","slug":"emma-raducanu-says-how-she-feels-about-having-to-play-against-naomi-osaka-for-the-first-ever-time-at-the-washington-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/85884\/","title":{"rendered":"Emma Raducanu says how she feels about having to play against Naomi Osaka for the first ever time at the Washington Open"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Emma Raducanu and Naomi Osaka will play in a blockbuster first-time meeting at the Washington Open.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Raducanu is playing both singles and doubles<\/a> at the Washington Open this week, where she is partnering Elena Rybakina<\/a> in the latter.<\/p>\n

After winning her first round match, Raducanu has moved closer towards a US Open goal<\/a> that could be crucial.<\/p>\n

Her next singles opponent will be Naomi Osaka, who bounced back from Wimbledon heartbreak<\/a> in an impressive straight sets victory of her own.<\/p>\n

\"EmmaPhoto by Kate McShane\/Getty Images for LTAEmma Raducanu gives her verdict on playing Naomi Osaka <\/p>\n

Raducanu<\/a> has already played 33 matches so far in 2025, and only needs four more this year to overtake her previous best.<\/p>\n

When speaking to the WTA<\/a> after her straight sets victory over seventh seed Marta Kostyuk, Raducanu explained what she has found difficult about this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it difficult transitioning from clay to grass to hard and I would say this is the first proper year where I actually am doing that,\u201d said Raducanu. \u201cI am proud of how I am managing it, even when I don\u2019t feel so comfortable because it is very lively here in comparison to the grass.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ball flies, it bounces so much higher than on the grass or it sits in a lot more comfortable heights for me. It\u2019s something that hopefully with more matches and more time on the hard courts I will get better.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Raducanu will now progress to the second round of the Washington Open<\/a> once again, where she will play fellow Grand Slam champion Osaka<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This will be the first time that Raducanu and Osaka have ever played a match, with the former revealing what she is expecting from the upcoming battle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be a really difficult match,\u201d continued Raducanu. \u201cShe has three more [Grand Slams] than me, so she has more experience on that front. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut she is a really dangerous opponent, someone who has been playing extremely well this year and had great results. I am expecting a really difficult match and I know I need to play really well if I want to get through that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naomi Osaka says what she thought about Emma Raducanu when she won the US Open<\/p>\n

Osaka beat Yulia Putintseva in her opening match at the Washington Open this year, where she is making her first appearance since 2018.<\/p>\n

The four-time Grand Slam champion has also spoken about how she is feeling ahead of the match against Raducanu.<\/p>\n

Raducanu made her breakout when winning the US Open in 2021<\/a>, with Osaka revealing that was when she knew the Brit was a \u2018good player\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited about it,\u201d\u00a0said Osaka.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve never played her before, so for me, that\u2019s something really cool too. Because I\u2019ve seen her, I guess when she first did well at Wimbledon before she won the US Open, moments like that, and I knew she was a good player.\u201d<\/p>\n

While they have never played a match before, Raducanu did hire Osaka\u2019s former coach Yutaka Nakamura<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

Raducanu and Osaka will go head-to-head for the first time at the Washington Open on Thursday, July 24.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emma Raducanu and Naomi Osaka will play in a blockbuster first-time meeting at the Washington Open. Raducanu is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":85885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[10115,6115,62,1464,67,132,68,52250,2212],"class_list":{"0":"post-85884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-emma-raducanu","9":"tag-naomi-osaka","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-washington-open","16":"tag-wta"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114902520526571260","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}