By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
Emma Raducanu became just the third defending U.S. Open women’s champion to lose in the first round with a 6-3, 6-3 defeat by Alize Cornet. Raducanu, who made history the previous year by becoming the first player to emerge from qualifying rounds to win a major singles championship, joined 2004 U.S. Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova and 2016 U.S. Open champion Angelique Kerber as first round losers as defending champions. Cornet, a 32-year-old Frenchwoman ranked No. 40, also made history by playing in her 63rd straight major tournament, setting the new women’s record previously held by Ai Sugiyama, who played 62 major singles championships.
The two sets lost by Raducanu were, in fact, the first two sets the 19-year-old Brit had lost in Flushing Meadows after winning all 10 of her matches in 2021 in straight sets.
Cornet, who recently discussed possibly retiring, reached her first career major quarterfinal at the Australian Open and also upset world No. 1 Iga Swiatek in the third round of Wimbledon.
“I’m sorry I beat her tonight but I’m really happy with my performance,” Cornet says in her post-match on-court interview. “I felt like I played a really solid match, I was fighting my heart out and hanging in there. I think my game at the net was pretty good, I think it was a bit of everything, playing with a bit of variation, and it definitely worked tonight.”
Watch how Raducanu’s incredible U.S. Open run in 2021 started in this video interview here: “Who Was The First To Lose To Emma Raducanu In Her Historic 2021 US Open Run” here: https://youtu.be/C9EpJhG8-Ac
