Emma Raducanu sends Wimbledon statement by dumping out No.9 seed to reach second week | Tennis | Sport

At at the ballot box we got Starmer – and on Centre Court, Emma Raducanu served up a stormer.

Britain’s former US Open champion ticked all the right boxes as she swept past Greek No.9 seed Maria Sakkari 6-2 6-3 to reach the fourth round at Wimbledon for the first time since 2021.

And in Sir Keir’s new Cabinet, at the Ministry of Fun she admitted: “This is some of the most fun I’ve ever had on a tennis court.”

And if she keeps going for her shots with such conviction, Raducanu’s decision to skip the French Open in favour of an extended training block could yet be vindicated spectacularly. With Hollywood deity Dustin Hoffman – Rain Man himself – in the Royal Box, play on outside courts may have been suspended by poor weather, but there were no issues for Raducanu under the All England Club roof.

Moving with more freedom than at any time since assorted injuries stalled her meteoric rise, she tuned into the patriotic support of a home crowd and looked the part. Sakkari, 28, already has a hotline to power as she is dating Konstantinos Mitsotakis, the son of Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis – and her forehand doesn’t lack power, either.

That’s why she was the No.9 seed here, but she arrived in SW19 having lost five of her last six Grand Slam singles contests and her her confidence was brittle.

Sakkari was there for the taking – and Raducanu knew it. When she hit her backhand return of serve early and with added venom, it stayed hit.

At her last meeting with Sakkari, in the US Open semi-finals three years ago, Raducanu was surfing a wave of irrepressible form which would lead to her triumph at Flushing Meadow as a teenager.

Now, in a charitably open quarter of the draw, following No.8 seed Zheng Qinwen’s defeat in the first round, she has already gone deeper into a Slam than at any time since opening her Grand Slam account in Queens.

And her body of work in the grass court season – the semi-finals at Nottingham followed by the last eight at Eastbourne – suggested she was on the right track to sustain her Wimbledon challenge into the second week.