Emma Raducanu’s quarter-final match against Daria Kasatkina in the Korea Open has been postponed due to heavy rainfall.
The British tennis star was scheduled to face the top seed on Friday morning, but inclement weather in Seoul led to the cancellation of all matches for the day. The 21-year-old is now set to play on Saturday, and if victorious, she will have to return to the court later that day for a semi-final match.
Raducanu has demonstrated impressive form during her two wins in the tournament so far, overcoming top 50 players Peyton Stearns and Yue Yuan to reach the quarter-finals. She aims to secure a spot in her second-ever WTA Tour semi-final, having previously made it to the last four in Nottingham in June.
However, she faces a challenging opponent in world number 13 Kasatkina
Kasatkina previously defeated Raducanu in the Eastbourne quarter-finals in the week leading up to Wimbledon. Other matches, including those between Diana Shnaider and Marta Kostyuk, Polina Kudermetova and Beatriz Haddad Maia, and Viktoriya Tomova against Veronika Kudermetova, were also called off due to the rain.
Raducanu’s performance in her straight-sets victory over Chinese eighth seed Yue was particularly noteworthy, with the Brit serving 11 aces, eight of which came during the second set. Her strong serve played a key role in helping her reach her fifth WTA quarter-final this year, something she acknowledged she has been focusing on improving.
The Brit has also opened up about the evolution of her serve, revealing significant changes since the clay season. Speaking to the WTA, she said: “If you watch my serve over the past few months, since the clay season it’s gone through a lot of iterations in terms of swing.
In general, if you play a lot of tournaments, things move out of place without you really realising, and then it’s harder to get the natural feeling back
She continued to discuss the adjustments made with her coach: “We’ve been working hard the last week looking at the swing, and which swing suits me best. It’s been pretty big changes, it’s not like we’re just changing the ball placement. Me and my coach decided we were going to take a risk and we were going to tweak things. We know it might not pay off short-term.
Raducanu also expressed confidence in her ability to adapt: “But one thing I do back myself on is I pick things up pretty quickly. In the first match it didn’t transfer yet, but today it definitely did.
“I just have to think bigger-picture. My goals are finishing this season strong but inevitably to set myself up in the best way possible for next year, because next year I really want to hit the ground running.
