Emma Raducanu suffered a crushing 57-minute defeat to a fellow teenager at the Transylvania Open tonight – and will miss out on a dream semi-final with her idol Simona Halep.
The US Open champion had won her first two matches since New York here in her father’s homeland of Romania. But the British No.23, who served so well in the second round, sent down seven double faults and had her serve broken four times to lose 6-2 6-2 to world No.55 Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine in less than an hour.
It is the teenager’s second heavy defeat since winning her first Major title as she went down 6-2 6-4 to world No.100 Aliaksandra Sasnovich in her first match at the Indian Wells Masters.
Raducanu plans to now visit her paternal grandmother Niculina in Bucharest and will give further consideration to appointing a new coach. She is next scheduled to play at the Upper Austria Ladies Linz from November 6.
Raducanu revealed she had been “destroyed” in her last meeting with the Ukrainian in a junior match in Belgium in 2015 when she was just 12.
And Kostyuk broke her serve in the opening game after the British No.1 sent down two double faults in her first ever WTA Tour quarter-final.
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The No.6 seed, who beat former champion Garbine Muguruza in the first round at this year’s French Open, repeatedly hurt Raducanu with her groundstrokes, especially her double-handed backhand down the line.
But the US Open gifted a fourth break with a seventh double fault to fall 1-4 down and the end was nigh.
Raducanu saved three match points in the final game but the match was over when she framed a backhand wide of the tramlines.
Home favourite Halep needed a medical timeout on a back injury in her second round win but she had no problem beating her fellow Romanian Jaqueline Cristian 6-1 6-1 in only 67 minutes.
The former world No.1, who has reached her first WTA semi since April, said: “It was much better. I felt it a little bit on the backhand since the practice. But I’m used to this pain, and I know how to manage it.
“I did some physio and I felt much better. So, just wanted to forget about it and just enjoy the tennis, which I did. I’m really proud of the performance from today.
“I’ve been motivated and I’m really thankful to be on-court. I treated my back last night and this morning. I am very happy that I could win and go into the semi-finals here in Cluj.”