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Williams has just one professional tournament remaining before
the U.S. Open, where she will have one last chance to tie
Margaret Court's record of 24 Grand Slam titles.
After a sluggish start in the WTA 1000 event in Cincinnati,
Williams gave the sold-out crowd something to cheer about in the
first set when she crushed back-to-back aces to cut reigning
U.S. Open champion Raducanu's lead to 4-3.
But the British 19-year-old fired back an ace of her own to snag
the first set and followed that up with a break of serve to open
the second.
Raducanu rolled on from there, smacking an unreturnable serve on
match point to end their first career meeting, setting up a
clash against two-time former major winner Victoria Azarenka.
Williams waved to the crowd before walking off court and did not
speak to the media later.
"I think we all just need to honour Serena and her amazing
career," Raducanu said on court.
"I'm so grateful for the experience of getting to play her and
for our careers to have crossed over. Everything she has
achieved is so inspirational and it was a true honour to get to
share the court with her."
Williams, who will turn 41 next month, was world number one and
had already won four major titles when Raducanu was born in
November 2002. She won her last major in 2017 while pregnant
with her daughter Olympia, who was in attendance.
OSAKA OUT
Earlier in the day, Naomi Osaka's U.S. Open preparations
suffered another setback as the former world number one was
swept aside 6-4 7-5 by China's Zhang Shuai.
It was Osaka's third tournament back from an Achilles' tendon
injury and it has been a stuttering return to action for the
twice U.S. Open champion, who also exited in the opening round
in Toronto last week, retiring with lower back pain.
Osaka got her serve working, firing down 10 aces, but not much
else, with the four-time Grand Slam winner piling up 29 unforced
errors and converting just one of four break chances.
Zhang next meets Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova, who beat Leylah
Fernandez, the losing finalist at last year's U.S. Open, on
Monday.
American teenager Coco Gauff, runner-up at this year's French
Open, rolled her left ankle late in the first set of her match
against qualifier Marie Bouzkova and eventually retired while
trailing 7-5 1-0.
Amanda Anisimova withdrew from her match against fellow American
Shelby Rogers due to a left ankle injury while second seed Anett
Kontaveit progressed to the round of 16 after a rain-interrupted
3-6 7-5 6-4 win over qualifier Tereza Martincova.
Joining her was France's Caroline Garcia, who upset fourth seed
Maria Sakkari 7-6(2) 6-7(6) 6-1.
Swiss Olympic champion Belinda Bencic lost 6-2 6-7(3) 6-4 to
Romanian Sorana Cirstea in another upset while former world
number one Karolina Pliskova registered a 7-5 6-1 victory over
42-year-old Venus Williams.
Two-time major winner Simona Halep, former French Open winner
Jelena Ostapenko and former U.S. Open runner-up Madison Keys
also moved into the second round.
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto, Rory Carroll in Los
Angeles and Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; Editing by Ken Ferris/Shri
Navaratnam/Peter Rutherford)
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