Emma Raducanu loses first match in two months as Brit suffers miserable return to tennis | Tennis | Sport

Emma Raducanu suffered a straight-sets defeat at the hands of Diane Parry on her return to competitive tennis in Strasbourg. The young Brit was playing her first match in two months, having been sidelined for a while with a post-viral illness. She was forced to miss tournaments in Miami, Linz, Madrid and Rome before travelling across the Channel to ramp up her preparations for the French Open.

It was always going to be tough for Raducanu to find form straight away and she was unable to beat Parry despite showing green shoots throughout the match. There was very little to separate the two players overall, with Parry’s resilience proving decisive as she came from behind in both sets to claim a 6-4 7-6 triumph and advance to the next round.

Raducanu made a promising start to the match with two convincing holds and nearly broke Parry at the very first opportunity.

She teetered on the verge of delivering the early blow during a lengthy deuce in the second game, but Parry eventually managed to squeeze through.

The pair went on to trade several holds, with very little to separate them in the early stages of the contest.

Raducanu showed great speed to make a couple of impressive returns and was finally rewarded with a break of serve in the sixth game to move 4-2 ahead.

However, that advantage was short-lived as Parry broke back straight away. From there, she found some momentum and won the next two games to take the lead for the first time in the match.

Another hard-earned break then saw the Frenchwoman claim the opening set, moving her halfway to victory and leaving Raducanu with plenty of work to do.

The former US Open champion held serve at the start of set two but found herself on the verge of being broken again in the third game.

However, she dug deep to fend off her opponent several times at deuce before winning three successive points to keep herself firmly in the contest.

A much-needed break of her own arrived in the fifth game as Raducanu went 4-2 up, claiming the decisive point with an impressive drop shot, but Parry returned the favour immediately.

It was at this point that Raducanu fell apart in the opening set and unfortunately for the Brit, it was a repeat as Parry held serve before claiming another break to lead 5-4 and within one game of winning the match.

She only needed to complete another hold but Raducanu delivered under pressure to break back, denying Parry a swift victory and forcing her to work harder for the result.

Then, in another tightly-contested game, the Brit completed a second successive break to force a tiebreak at the end of the set.

She couldn’t maintain that form under the pressure that followed, though, with Parry doing the business to claim a hard-fought victory in two hours and 25 minutes.

EXPRESS SPORT ON FB! Get all the best sports news and much more on our Facebook page.