French Open: Emma Raducanu says 'biggest win' in Paris was staying injury free

French Open: Emma Raducanu says 'biggest win' in Paris was staying injury free
_124914121_raducanu.jpgEmma Raducanu won six of her 11 matches in her debut clay-court seasonDates: 22 May-5 June Venue: Roland Garros, ParisCoverage: Live text and radio commentaries of selected matches across BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, the BBC Sport website and app

British number one Emma Raducanu says being injury free has been her "biggest win" at the French Open.

Raducanu, 19, saw her debut on the Paris clay ended with a three-set defeat by Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus in the second round.

The US Open champion has had to deal with a number of physical issues this year and a back issue had put her Roland Garros participation in doubt.

"Other than general fatigue I don't have any problems or pains," she said.

She was forced her to retire from an Italian Open first-round match against Canada's Bianca Andreescu last week with the back injury, which was the latest in a series of niggles that have dogged the teenager in her first full year on the WTA Tour.

Recently, Raducanu has been spending more time in the gym, focusing on strengthening work to equip herself better for the rigours of the tour.

"Physically I'm alright, other than the general fatigue that you get in a match," said Raducanu, who will now focus on the British grass-court season.

"The work I've been doing is to help my muscles fire up and I think the biggest positive of this week is I have come out completely injury free.

"For me that's the biggest win."

Raducanu, seeded 12th, grew in confidence on her way to winning the first set against 47th-ranked Sasnovich, but started to fade in the second set and was unable to recover.

Frustrations began to show as Sasnovich started to hit more winners, with Raducanu increasingly starting to struggle on serve as fatigue set in.

Opportunities to regain the momentum came with five break points in the third game of the decider, but Raducanu was unable to convert any of them and then lost the final four games in a 3-6 6-1 6-1 defeat.

"I think that my serve percentage dropped and she was able to get all over my second serve and take a swing and start the point better than I was," Raducanu said.

"But it was a pretty tough second and third set, tight, even though the score says one and one. A lot went into that match."

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