Emma Raducanu missed the chance to win her first title since her US Open triumph in 2021 after losing in straight sets to home favourite Sorana Cirstea in the Transylvania Open final.
Raducanu, the top seed, appeared to be feeling the effects of her marathon semi-final win against Ukraine’s Oleksandra Oliynykova on Friday, falling to Cirstea 6-0, 6-2 in little over an hour in Cluj.
Romanian Cirstea, 35 and in her final year on the Tour, sealed the fourth WTA title of her 20-year career.
Raducanu, whose father is Romanian, was pushed to the limit in her last-four clash against Oliynykova 24 hours earlier and had no answers against Cirstea’s big hitting.
The British No 1 came under early pressure, eventually losing her opening service game having saved five break points, and she went on to lose the opening set without winning a game in just 30 minutes.
After losing a fourth successive service game to fall 2-0 down in the second set, Raducanu broke Cirstea to love to win her first game but then needed a medical time out.
She recovered to then hold her serve for the first time to level at 2-2, but she could not maintain her momentum as Cirstea took the next three games to lead 5-2.
Raducanu appeared to have nothing left in the tank as she served to stay in the match and in the next game she lost her serve for a sixth time as Cirstea took the title.
At the Abu Dhabi Open, the Czech qualifier Sara Bejlek sealed a surprise first WTA Tour win by beating Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-6 (5), 6-1 in the final. The 20-year-old will climb from 101 in the rankings into the top 50 after the best week of her career.
