Emma Raducanu braved a back issue to move through to the third round of the Australian Open for the first time, defeating the big-hitting American Amanda Anisimova in straight sets.
These two players are friendly off the court but it was a nervy battle, especially after Raducanu called a medical time-out early in the second set.
The interruption – which found the trainer manipulating Raducanu’s hips and lower back – came with Anisimova leading 3-0 but it seemed to put her off her stride. For the next 15 minutes, Anisimova became Amiss-inova, spraying errors in all directions and bringing her opponent back into the set.
The momentum swung back and forward unpredictably throughout. It often felt as if Raducanu was playing uphill, such was Anisimova’s greater weight of shot, and there were times when the ball was coming off the American’s racket with a sound like cannon fire.
But there were also times when Anismova lost her way and her forehand, in particular, misfired badly. The challenge for Raducanu was to mix things up, to use her dexterity to put the ball in awkward places, and to exploit Anismova’s rather stilt-legged and stiff movement. She did this with great intelligence, regularly asking Anisimova to hit one more shot than she wanted to.
There were two particularly satisfying takeaways for Raducanu. The first was that she served a relatively modest five double-faults. This was only a third of her alarming first-round total, and two fewer than Anisimova committed.
The second was that she managed to handle her physical discomfort. It is hard to remember another time when Raducanu fought through pain to win a match on the tour, but this was a second tenacious performance to follow her equally determined passage through the first round.
Raducanu put her hands on her head in disbelief after converting her first match point via a crafty low, skidding, curving slice that Anisimova couldn’t handle. Then she gave a delighted on-court interview in which she called the Australian Open “the slam I love playing at”. It’s always good to flatter the locals.
Her tournament doesn’t get any easier from here, however. Her next opponent, on Saturday, will be world No2 and four-time grand-slam champion Iga Swiatek.
02:15 AM GMT
Raducanu’s post-match interview
To make it past the second round means a lot to me. The support is so good, I can’t wait to play in front of you guys again, thank you so much for your support.
It’s incredibly difficult when you play a friend, it adds another dimension to the match and not always a pleasant one.
I had to fight hard and not go away in the second set when the chips were down.
It was tricky, little bit blustery and sun on one side. Both of us had patches with our serves but yeah I managed to regroup I was pretty proud of that.
Sometimes to laugh it off rather than getting stressed about it is the best way.
[Iga Swiatek] will be a good match for me, I’m loving it, a good opportunity to play one of the best. I’ve nothing to lose, I’m going to be swinging and I can’t wait to play in front of your guys again.
02:08 AM GMT
Raducanu will play Swiatek in R3
A daunting prospect but she defended magnificently today and deserves to progress.
02:07 AM GMT
Raducanu* 6-3, 7-5 Anisimova (*denotes server)
Couple of lovely forehand winners from Anisimova take her to 30-love but then Raducanu puts up her defences and keeps peppering her opponent’s body until she whacks a forehand into the net. Raducanu’s speed on her forehand side forces another error and now its 30-all.
A brilliant forehand crosscourt pass from Raducanu earns her match point.
Game set and match Raducanu! After another spell of great hustling in defence from Raducanu, Anisimova spears a backhand wide.
02:02 AM GMT
Raducanu* 6-3, 6-5 Anisimova (*denotes server)
At 15-all Raducanu comes up with a serve-volley gambit that proves very effective. But Anisimova follows that with a backhand drive up the line.
Raducanu’s second serve is too short and Anisimova devours it to take a break point. Raducanu defends it with a fierce forehand crosscourt.
Then Anisimova bends a forehand return intended to paint the line outside it. Advantage Raducanu and she holds with an unreturnable serve.
Anisimova will need to hold to take it to a tie-break. But given Raducanu’s ability in the clutch, that should hold no fears for her.
01:56 AM GMT
Raducanu 6-3, 5-5 Anisimova* (*denotes server)
Raducanu starts with a blistering return right up the middle. Love-15 and then Anisimova flays a backhand winner followed by a roundhouse volley winner when she let a ball she could have smshed com down to giver her a wider winning zone.
But she pushes her next forehand attempt at a pass wide: 30-all.
The big serve gives Anisimova game point but Raducanu pulls off a remarkable defensive display, chipping returns from her ankles to stay in the point long enough to elicit the mistake.
Deuce. Anisimova moves to advantage next point by going to the net but then sprays a backhand miles wide off Raducanu’s return. Deuce deja vu.
Anisimova goes to advantage again with a drive volley and seals the hold when Raducanu’s forehand drifts too long.
01:50 AM GMT
Raducanu* 6-3, 5-4 Anisimova (*denotes server)
Anisimova unfurls a couple of sensational winners to get back in at 30-all but then blasts a backhand crosscourt into the net after a scrambling defensive rally from Raducanu.
The next point is a pretty exact replica, Raducanu clinging on until her opponent could bear it no longer and flapped a forehand into the net.
From 3-0 up, Anisimova now serves to stay in the match.
Super hustle for Raducanu on those last two points, making Anisimova play an extra shot, and – most importantly – making her play them from close to the net. As a flat hitter, Anisimova finds it difficult to get the ball up and down from close to the net.
01:46 AM GMT
Raducanu 6-3, 4-4 Anisimova* (*denotes server)
A wild forehand at 30-love gives Raducanu hope and another helping hand from the wind for the Briton allows her to tie it up at 30-all. Raducanu is still kneading her left hip when she can but earns another break point when her defensive play forces Anisimova to crack, firing a series of deep groundstrokes to seal the break back.
Anisimova’s game is penthouse and pavement, fabulous and awful. No consistency.
01:42 AM GMT
Raducanu* 6-3, 3-4 Anisimova (*denotes server)
Having won only three of the last 15 points, Anisimova goes to the well, comes out swinging and breaks back again. What a switch-back of a match so far.
01:38 AM GMT
Raducanu 6-3, 3-3 Anisimova* (*denotes server)
Anisimova starts with a double fault and then sprays a groundstroke wide. Love-30. At the end of another hustling defensive rally from Raducanu, Anisimova’s forehand cracks and Raducanu has three break points.
Amanda defends the first but gives up the second with a double fault, her seventh of the match. She has now lost three in a row and we’re back on serve. Which is not what was predicted when Raducanu summoned the trainer at three-love down.
01:33 AM GMT
Raducanu* 6-3, 2-3 Anisimova (*denotes server)
Yes she can, holding it to 15 as Anisimova keeps the unforced error count climbing.
OK, so that was more positive again. The first point after the medical time-out, Raducanu fired a lovely backhand pass up the line. Then Anisimova’s forehand started misbehaving again and we’re back close to equilibrium in this set.
01:32 AM GMT
Raducanu 6-3, 1-3 Anisimova* (*denotes server)
A second foot fault of the match for Anisimova is called on resumption and at 15-all Raducanu swats a wonderful backhand winner up the line: 15-30. Then Anisimova drags a forehand into the net. Two break piints but judicous use of the wide serve helps Anisimova to defend the first.
But not the second. A whip of a forehand return from Raducanu sets her up to smash a winner with her second stroke of the point.
One break back. Anisimova seems to have had her momentum broken temporarily while Raducanu looks fresher than she had been. The test will be whether Emma can hold her serve.
01:26 AM GMT
Ominous signs
A dramatic shift in the whole mood there, as Raducanu served three straight double-faults on the ad side and then called the trainer. Her intensity has completely fallen away and she suddenly wasn’t achieving any ball speed to speak of, on any of her shots. Trainer now on to look at her hips and lower back. From feeling quite optimistic about this match – and feeling like Anisimova’s forehand was breaking down – I’d now find it hard to see Raducanu coming through. It’s hard to remember her overcoming any physical adversity in any of her wins on the tour to date.
01:24 AM GMT
Medical time out
Replays show Raducanu prodding the top of her left thigh in the previous two games. The trainer is stretching it and Raducanu is lying on her back and has taken some tablets, too.
01:22 AM GMT
Raducanu* 6-3, 0-3 Anisimova (*denotes server)
Anisimova is reading Raducanu’s second serve fluently now, making it all the more important that she lands a few more of those first-serve body shots. Bcakhand errors, pulling them into the net from Raducanu, allow a break to 15.
Anisimova is a double break up and on comes the trainer for Raducanu. Looks like a hip or groin problem.
01:17 AM GMT
Raducanu 6-3, 0-2 Anisimova* (*denotes server)
At 30-15 Anisimova unfurls her first ace of the tournament and follows it with her second. Firmest hold of the match.
01:15 AM GMT
Raducanu* 6-3, 0-1 Anisimova (*denotes server)
Raducanu’s athleticism has allowed her to dominate defensively, meaning she gets the ball back over the net and in regulation more times than her opponent and, of she can’t hit a winner, probes patiently until Anisimova cracks.
Anisimova has won only seven fewer points in the match but they have been decisive ones.
Raducanu’s second double fault of the game at 40-30 takes them to deuce and then Anisimova turns the screw to earn a break point which Raducanu will have to try to defend on her second serve. But she double faults again and gift-wraps a break to Anisimova.
Anisimova breaks Raducanu’s serve.
Feels like Raducanu burgled that one against the run of play but you have to admire her tenacity. Anisimova, by contrast, lacked mental steel to match her massive weapons off the ground. Game on.
01:07 AM GMT
Raducanu 6-3 Anisimova* (*denotes server)
Set point for Raducanu after she read Anisimova’s serve and fired a glorious forehand return and then Anisimova double faulted for the second time in the game, the fourth time in the match, and Raducanu from 1-3 and 40-15 down, wins the set.
Anisimova has hit 20 winners bit made 18 unforced errors.
01:05 AM GMT
Raducanu* 5-3 Anisimova (*denotes server)
Both players continue to look jittery on their own serve, particularly from the end furthest away from the camera but at love-30 sown Raducanu finds two body serves that stop Anisimova getting her big gun out.
At 30-all, though, Raducanu flays a forehand too ling then plays fearsomely good defensive tennis to wait, watch and see, holding on for the errors to hold serve.
Queen of the clutch so far.
12:58 AM GMT
Raducanu 4-3 Anisimova* (*denotes server)
Two unforced errors, her 11th and 12th of the match, by Anisimova give Raducanu a foothold but she strays an inch too long when attempting to exploit a second serve.
Anisimova rallies to 40-30 with her forehand but Raducanu answers that with a jabby return that forces the tall Anisimova wider than she wanted to go.
At deuce Anisimova nails her second shot but she cracks when Raducanu hustles a rally with great, athletic defence, smearing a backhand pass wide.
Then Anisimova hooks a backhand into the net and it’s advantage Raducanu. And she breaks with a wonderful return off a second serve, hitting it early and forcing Anisimova so deep in her backhand wing that she can’t keep her response in.
Raducanu has the break.
Goodness, Anisimova has had two game points in each of the last three games and lost them all. Great fighting spirit from Raducanu, even as she continues to be under the pump in the rallies.
12:52 AM GMT
Raducanu* 3-3 Anisimova (*denotes server)
Raducanu is finding it all but impossible to cope with the speed and angle of Anisimova’s returns and looks in jeopardy at 15-40 but she scrapes the next point with the help of a net cord that allows her, for her next stroke, to leap and gently tap a disguised winner, wrongfooting her opponent. Her serve fires to take it to deuce and then she blitzes a forehand winner like a gunslinger, both knees bent, the racquet head coming through at what would have been at most hip height.
Anisimova’s howitzer return takes the game back to deuce but she smears her return off a second serve way wide as she goes crosscourt. Advantage Raducanu. And she’ll have to win the game on her second serve… but she can’t, Anisimova lashing a backhand winner.
A good, low deep serve is sliced too long by Anisimova and Raducanu finally holds and roars her relief/delight when her opponent pans her return into the net, gulled by another deep serve to the backhand side.
12:43 AM GMT
Wild is the wind
Is there a more aggressive returner in the game than Anisimova? It’s a tough scene when you have come off a bad serving match and then have to pitch to this home-run hitter. A little fortunate for Raducanu that the wind suddenly got up there and Anisimova double-faulted to hand back a break. But she is still trailing by 11 winners to two.
12:42 AM GMT
Raducanu 2-3 Anisimova* (*denotes server)
As Raducanu pointed out last night, Anisimova is a big ball striker and tries to dominate, racking up the winners as she finds her range, leading that metric 11-1 and 40-15 until Raducanu fires her second winner with a fabulous, thunderous backhand return. And then a double fault takes it to deuce.
And Anisimova’s desire to smack winners is her undoing when she misjudges the flight, conceding a break point which she makes a gift of to Raducanu with a double fault.
Raducanu breaks back.
12:36 AM GMT
Raducanu* 1-3 Anisimova (*denotes server)
Raducanu comes to the net to smash a winner after using both wings to manoeuvre her opponent around until she left a forehand short. But Anisimova then smokes a backhand up the line to take it to 15-30. This match is on a knife-edge and then Anisimova rifles another backhand return winner up the line.
Two break points. Raducanu defends the first when Anisimova nets her backhand crosscourt. Nota good time for Raducanu to foot-fault but she defends the second on her second serve when Anisimova sprays a backhand up the line too wide. She’s been nailing those so far.
At deuce Anisimova approaches the net to drive a volley winner after pushing Raducanu deep into her backhand corner. She nets the next return, though, off a spiffing serve and that’s a third break point defended by Radders.
A second chunky serve follows and Anisimova cannot keep her return in but we return to deuce after a wayward Raducanu backhand, and again by virtue of an Anisimova forehand winner from the T up the right line.
Raducanu defends yet another break point with her forehand but concedes another when Anisimova earns the fifth of the game with a withering forehand return.
And Raducanu finally cracks, losing her serve for the second time when she uses her forehand to shove Raducanu so deep and wide in her backhand court that she can’t keep the ball in play.
Morning from Melbourne. I just squeaked in for the first game after leaving the site at 2am after Jack Draper’s great win. Won’t someone think of the tennis writers? OK, that wasn’t a serious suggestion. A strong start from Anisimova here who’s greater weight of shot is making itself felt. Unless Raducanu can find her first serve, she’s in a spot of bother here.
12:25 AM GMT
Fancy some reading?
Relive the greatest moments in the history of Wimbledon with the Telegraph’s original reporting.
12:23 AM GMT
Raducanu 1-2 Anisimova* (*denotes server)
Raducanu’s returning is red hot so far, particularly on the second serve, ie half of Anisimova’s. But at 15-30 Anisimova fired a wonderful backhand winner down the line and then Raducanu framed a backhand to make it 40-30.
When Raducanu pans a backhand groundstroke from the baseline too long, we have the first hold of serve.
12:20 AM GMT
Raducanu* 1-1 Anisimova (*denotes server)
Oh dear Raducanu begins with another double fault, her 16th of the tournament and does not land her first serve of the next point. The second serve is good enough for Anisimova to get caught by the wind into hitting long.
The second game in succession goes to 15-40 by virtue of a dicey serve and Anisimova immediately breaks back, using her sizzling back hand to elicit errors.
12:16 AM GMT
Raducanu 1-0 Anisimova* (*denotes server)
Anisimova starts where she left off by not landing her first serve and Raducanu uses the second serve to pin her to the baseline before pulling her into the net with a drop shot that the American nets.
Both players are hitting the ball smoothly already but the powerful Anisimova misjudges a forehand at 15-all and then smears another one wide to give Raducanu two break points. She’s weak in the forehand wing according to Anne Keothavong and that’s where Raducanu will target her.
Raducanu needs only one of the break points, pouncing on a second serve that sits up and begs to invite another forehand error.
Raducanu breaks serve.
12:07 AM GMT
The players are out for the knock-up
But first they toss a disc with AO on one side and a portrait of John Newcombe on the other. What’s the call there? Not heads or tails? Letters or ’tache?
12:00 AM GMT
The players are due on the court at around midnight
So, only a couple of minutes to wait now. Eurosport, which has the rights, is refreshingly terse in its approach to build-up for some matches. Wham, bam and straight in. Sky could learn a lot from that. As a wise man once wrote: Sometimes these words just don’t have to be said…’
11:47 PM GMT
A technical audit
Simon Briggs cast his eye over Raducanu’s performance in the first round and analysed where her game currently stands after various tweaks:
Raducanu’s serve ‘has a mind of its own’ but her forehand is a new weapon.
11:31 PM GMT
Tough third round ahead
The winner of this match will face the victor of the second-round match between the No 2 seed Iga Swiatek, a five-time grand slam tournament winner, and Rebbeca Sramkova, the world No 43 who won in Thailand during the Autumns Asian swing.
10:55 PM GMT
Preview: A tale of haphazard serves
Good evening/morning and welcome to the Australian Open women’s singles match between Britain’s Emma Raducanu and Amanda Anisimova, the 23-year-old from New Jersey who is ranked 39 in the world and has made it to the fourth round at Melbourne Park three times, fought her way to the semis at Roland Garros in 2019 and beat Coco Gauff en route to the Wimbledon quarter-finals in 2022.
Raducanu’s serve was haphazard in her first-round victory over 26th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, conceding 15 double faults, but she made up for it with her grittiness at pivotal moments and with some blistering forehand winners. She has never made it past round two at this tournament but is facing an opponent against whom she has never played and one also suffering from an unreliable first serve. Anisimova, though, got the job done with her second serve against Maria Lourdes Carle to win 6-2 6-3.
The 2021 US open champion said that adrenalin had got her through the key points in the first round. “I was embracing the nerves that come with it,” she said after the match. “I do like those clutch situations and I felt pretty confident. I was pleased with the way I stepped up and took my game to her.”
Although they have never played a competitive match, Raducanu knows all about her opponent. “I know she’s a big ball-striker,” she said. I practised with her a couple times. She likes to dictate. So I think it’s going to be a big challenge for me.”
Anisimova, who was only 17 when she made that semi-final at the French Open, understands the toll early unexpected success can impose on players such as herself and Raducanu. In 2023 she took eight months off to prioritise her mental health and said this week: “ I think that performing well at a young age definitely comes with its perks and also some challenges.
“I feel like you learn a lot of things along the way. There are a lot of lessons that I had to learn. You grow up very quickly, but at the same time I feel like that really prepares you for your career. We both have so much ahead of us. I feel like, when I play these slams, I handle the nerves better because I’ve been on so many big stages at a young age. I wouldn’t trade all the memories I had from when I was younger.”
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