Emma Raducanu’s grass-court resurgence stopped one win short at Queen’s Club on Sunday, the 22-year-old falling 6-4, 7-5 to Czech world number 12 Karolina Muchova in the WTA 500 final. It was Raducanu’s first tour-level final since she lifted the US Open trophy as a qualifier in September 2021, and the first staged at the refurbished west London venue since the women’s draw returned after a 52-year absence.
Defeat in front of a sold-out 9,000-strong centre court was bruising — Raducanu served for the second set at 5-4 before Muchova reeled off three straight games — but the bigger picture is unambiguous. The British number one will rise to a projected world ranking of 28 when the new list is published on Monday, her highest position since July 2022, and arrives at Wimbledon a fortnight from now seeded for the first time since her teenage breakthrough.
A week that rewrote the form book
Raducanu dropped just one set en route to the final, dispatching Magdalena Frech, Rebecca Sramkova, Zheng Qinwen and Madison Keys in successive rounds. The win over Zheng, the Olympic champion and a 6-3, 6-2 victor over Raducanu in Indian Wells in March, was the most striking result of her season: a 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 dismantling in which she struck 28 winners against 17 unforced errors and broke the Chinese number one’s serve four times.
The semi-final against Keys, the reigning Australian Open champion, was equally instructive. Raducanu trailed 4-1 in the deciding set before winning five consecutive games, closing out 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 with a forehand pass on her third match point. It was her first top-10 win on grass and her first three-set victory at WTA level since 2024.
“This is the new Emma,” former British number one Annabel Croft said on BBC commentary. “The footwork is sharper, the second serve has 15 miles per hour on it, and crucially she is competing physically over three sets. A year ago that Keys match is gone in straights.”
The Muchova lesson
Sunday’s defeat exposed the ceiling Raducanu must still push through. Muchova, a 2023 French Open finalist, won 78 per cent of points behind her first serve and dropped only 11 points on her own delivery across the second set. When Raducanu served at 5-4, 30-30, she chose a body serve that Muchova read and redirected for a clean backhand winner; two points later, a tame second serve was punished down the line.
The numbers tell the story of the margins. Raducanu won 89 points to Muchova’s 92. She converted two of five break points; Muchova took four of nine. Both players struck 22 winners. The Czech simply produced her best tennis in the moments that decided the match — a quality Raducanu has talked about chasing since her return from wrist and ankle surgeries in 2023.
- First WTA final since 2021 US Open
- Projected ranking: 28 (up from 37)
- Wins over two top-10 opponents in a single week — a career first
- Set to be seeded at Wimbledon for the first time since 2021
- Prize money: £164,000, her largest cheque outside a Grand Slam
What it means for Wimbledon
Wimbledon’s main draw begins on 30 June, and Raducanu’s projected seeding of 28 will keep her away from the top four — Sabalenka, Swiatek, Gauff and Pegula — until the fourth round. More significantly, it offers a friendlier opening-week path than the unseeded routes that produced fourth-round exits against Lulu Sun in 2024 and Aryna Sabalenka in 2023.
Coach Mark Petchey, brought back on a trial basis at Miami in March and confirmed full-time last month, has overseen a measurable shift in her grass-court game. Raducanu is serving at an average of 108 mph this fortnight, up from 102 mph at Eastbourne 12 months ago, and her first-strike points behind the serve-plus-one pattern have risen to 64 per cent.
The pressure of being a home Slam contender will return — it always does — but the evidence of Queen’s suggests Raducanu is meeting it with a more durable game than she has carried into SW19 since her 2021 quarter-final run. She leaves west London without the trophy. She also leaves it as a genuine outside contender at the only tournament that matters most to her.
Ahmad Ali is Sports Editor at SportsPortal.net
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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