"I'm kind of glad that what happened today happened" - Emma Raducanu after Indian Wells loss
Emma Raducanu's maiden campaign in Indian Wells was cut short with a 2-6, 4-6 defeat at the hands of Belarus' sasnovich" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-is-sponsored="false">Aliaksandra Sasnovich on Friday. Raducanu was competing at her first tour-level tournament since her sensational triumph at the US Open last month, but was unable to make much of an impression.
While the two women produced a host of fierce baseline exchanges, Raducanu's 31 unforced errors proved costly. The teenager also faced as many as 11 break points against a determined Sasnovich, who came into the encounter unseeded and ranked No. 100 in the world.
In her post-match press conference, Emma Raducanu underlined the fact that she is still new to the tour and that her inexperience was probably reflected in her first-round loss. Nevertheless, she said she would learn and take a lesson from the result.
"Playing at night is always going to be different," Raducanu said. "I haven't had much experience with night matches. I've only played one before on Ashe. I'm still very, very new to the tour."
"I think that experience just comes from playing week in, week out and experiencing all these different things," she added. "I'm kind of glad that what happened today happened so I can learn and take it as a lesson. So going forward, yeah, I'll just have more experience banked."
Emma Raducanu refuted the suggestion that she put too much pressure on herself before the match. Instead, the Brit expressed the belief that highs and lows are part of the sport, before lauding Sasnovich for playing a great match.
"I didn't go in there putting any pressure on myself because in my mind I'm so inexperienced that all these, I'm just taking it all in," Raducanu said. "You're going to have highs and you're always going to have some lows where you're disappointed with how you performed."
"Aliaksandra played an extremely great match," the 18-year-old added. "She has played - you could tell she's more experienced than me. She went out there and executed her game plan better than I did. She, of course, deserved to win that."
Emma Raducanu is confident that she will get her momentum back once she starts playing tournaments regularly. She said she would review the match and plan further with a "clear head".
"You definitely get sharp by playing matches," the No. 17 seed said. "I'm not match-tight right now. Like I haven't played a competition in a month, since the US Open. That will just come just playing week in, week out. I'll probably just go back and review the match probably tomorrow when I can look at it with a clear head. From then on I'll be able to plan."
"I'm 18 years old, I need to cut myself some slack" - Emma Raducanu
Emma Raducanu continued to talk about the positives from her loss at the 2021 BNP Paribas Open. Raducanu commented on how such experiences are for the "greater good", before expressing the belief that she will be thanking this moment in the future.
She further said that she needs to cut herself some slack since she is still a teenager who is learning her way around the top echelons of the sport.
"I think it's going to take me time to really adjust to what's going on," the World No. 22 said. "I'm still so new to everything. Like the experiences that I'm going through right now, even though I might not feel 100% amazing right now, I know they're for the greater good. For the bigger picture, I'll be thanking this moment."
"So that's the lesson I think, that you can easily get sucked into being so focused on the result and getting disappointed," she added. "I mean, I'm 18 years old. I need to cut myself some slack."