US Open champion Emma Raducanu is out at Indian Wells after falling to Aliaksandra Sasnovich 6-2, 6-4 on Friday night.
The 18-year-old entered the BNP Paribas Open as a wild card recipient, marking only her fifth appearance at a tour-level event.
🇧🇾🇧🇾🇧🇾Sasnovich puts out her best to sink Raducanu 6-2, 6-4 to get her second Top 50 win of the season.#BNPPO21 pic.twitter.com/tnUIiGl47Q— BNP Paribas Open (@BNPPARIBASOPEN) October 9, 2021
🇧🇾🇧🇾🇧🇾Sasnovich puts out her best to sink Raducanu 6-2, 6-4 to get her second Top 50 win of the season.#BNPPO21 pic.twitter.com/tnUIiGl47Q
Following the loss, Raducanu put her lack of experience into perspective: “I mean, I’m 18 years old. I need to cut myself some slack.”
Friday’s defeat, Raducanu says, serves an important lesson for her growth as a player.
“I’m still very, very new to the tour. I think that experience just comes from playing week in, week out and experiencing all these different things. I’m kind of glad that what happened today happened so I can learn and take it as a lesson, so going forward I’ll just have more experienced banked.”
Raducanu’s fellow US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez also took the court in Indian wells, defeating Alizé Cornet 6-2, 6-3 in her main-draw debut. The 19-year-old will next face No.9 seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the tournament’s third round.