Britain’s Emma Raducanu suffered a disappointing defeat towards world quantity 101 Cristina Bucsa of Spain within the opening spherical of the Singapore Open.
The 22-year-old was taking part in for the primary time since her 6-1 6-0 third spherical loss to Iga Swiatek on the Australian Open and the information her coach Nick Cavaday was stepping again from the position to “prioritise getting again to full well being”.
However in a gruelling encounter lasting three hours and three minutes and that includes 17 breaks of service, Bucsa got here by means of 5-7 7-5 7-5 towards the seventh seed within the pair’s first assembly.
The Spaniard had served for the opening set at 5-4 up however Raducanu, ranked 56, rattled off the subsequent three video games to take management of the match.
The second set began with three consecutive breaks of service to depart Bucsa 3-1 after which 4-2 up however Raducanu continued to battle and one other run of three video games in a row noticed her go 5-4 up however Bucsa responded with the subsequent three video games to stage the match.
Each gamers struggled to carry serve within the decider however though a weary-looking Raducanu dug deep to edge 5-4 forward, Bucsa held after which broke her opponent at a vital time to depart her serving for the match.
The British quantity two saved a few match factors however Bucsa, the Olympic ladies’s doubles bronze medallist, shortly earned one other and this time Raducanu netted.
Bucsa will subsequent face both Sijia Wei of China or Mananchaya Sawangkaew of Thailand within the final 16.
In the meantime, British quantity 5 Jodie Burrage was crushed by Croatia’s Antonia Ruzic within the second spherical of qualifying on the Linz Open in Austria.
Burrage, who impressed in a second-round defeat by Coco Gauff on the Australian Open earlier this month, beat Serbia’s Lola Radivojevic within the first qualifying spherical however misplaced 6-4 7-6 (7-1) to Ruzic, who’s ranked 18 locations beneath the Briton at 168th on the planet.
