Emma Raducanu still to find formula that can help her beat the best

As the crowds gathered at Queen’s in their straw hats, sipping on Pimms, the Red Arrows came overhead, en route to Trooping the Colour.

It was a day so quintessentially English, it was close to self-parody.

Strange to imagine, then, that the whole concept of this week had pushed the Queen’s Club close to revolt when the Lawn Tennis Association originally agreed with the Women’s Tennis Association to host a first women’s tournament in London since 1973.

Threats of legal action failed to materialise, however, and members of the club, who are required to buy a £15,000 share on joining, were forced to accept an extra week without padel courts.

The full stands that greeted the players have at least demonstrated public appetite for more tennis. The men’s competition has been voted as the ATP 500 tournament of the year three years in a row and many of the women playing were delighted to get their own opportunity to play at the club.

“I have always heard from all the guys that they love this tournament,” said Australian Open winner Madison Keys on Friday.

“It definitely has a very specific feel about it. It’s very cool walking around the club and seeing everything. It’s what I think a lot of Americans would think of as a British club.”

Naturally British hopes were the focus. “Boultercanu” – the portmanteau for the new doubles pairing of Katie Boulter and Emma Raducanu – delighted at the start of the week, despite not making it past the second round.

The duo were also battling it out for the British No 1 spot, which Raducanu ended up claiming after her round of 16 win over Rebecca Sramkova. She wrote “Long live Boultercanu” on the camera after her victory.

Raducanu ended up losing in the quarter-finals to top seed and Olympic champion Qinwen Zheng. She is in a strange position as she slowly adjusts to regular life on the tour as part of a career disrupted by injury and weighed down by expectation.

Four years on from her US Open win, this has been her most consistent season with 27 matches played, compared with 16 at this point in 2024 and 18 in 2022, her previous busiest years. That is before you add in her two doubles matches with Boulter this week.

She made the quarter-final of a WTA 1000 event for the first time ever in Miami, as well as a career best run to the third round at the Australian Open and the fourth round in Rome.

That has led to a steady rise in the rankings where she now sits at 37, her highest level since she reached world No 10 in 2022, and far above the 165th position she was in this time last year.

She is likely to rise again when the rankings are adjusted tomorrow, but the hope that she might make the top 32 to be seeded for Wimbledon is now all but impossible after she pulled out of the Berlin Open, which starts on Tuesday, citing the back issue that has been troubling her for the past month.

Raducanu emphasised after her loss to Zheng that she had wanted to play in Berlin, instead of a lower level tournament like Nottingham, in order to come up against top-ranked players.

“I wanted to have exposure to the best, so that if it were to happen in a Grand Slam I would have some sort of rough idea,” she said.

“My goals have slightly shifted from being seeded to actually improving my game so when I play those top players, it feels closer and more competitive.”

Raducanu has played five times against top five players this year but has managed to win only one set in those matches.

Prior to Queen’s, she had lost to Iga Świątek twice, Coco Gauff and Madison Keys this year.

It was clear against Zheng that she did not have the power to match her opponent. Zheng took the first set with relative ease. When Zheng’s first serve did break down in the second set, Raducanu went a double break up. Zheng won 74% of her first serve points but only 39% of her second serve ones. But Raducanu could not keep hold of her advantage and by the time she double-faulted to see the second set go back on serve, it felt like she had accepted her fate. In the end, Zheng won 6-2, 6-4.

The fact that Raducanu was able to go two breaks up demonstrated a competitiveness, but as with her recent meetings with Swiatek and Gauff, Zheng just looked a level above. Raducanu could do worse than looking to Tatjana Maria, the grass specialist who has gone on a magnificent run to the final from qualifying.

The 37-year-old mother of two, who reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon in 2022, became the oldest player to reach the final of a WTA 500 event thanks to her famous use of slice to disrupt Keys’ big hitting in a 6-3, 7-6 (3) win.

She will face Amanda Anisimova, the 22-year-old American who won her first WTA 1000 title in Qatar earlier this year. Anisimova and Zheng traded breaks throughout the match, fighting to find the better angles with their powerful hitting. In the end, Anisimova outlasted her opponent to win 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.

Photograph by Shaun Brooks/CameraSport/Getty Images