Emma Raducanu bounces back from injury to outclass Storm Sanders in dominant Stuttgart win

Emma Raducanu sealed a dominant 6-1 6-2 victory in her maiden WTA Tour clay match on Wednesday. The eighth seed needed just 70 minutes to blow qualifier Storm Sanders away at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart. Her overwhelming win came just days after the Brit suffered an injury scare at the Billie Jean King Cup.

Raducanu was playing just her third professional match on the clay and making her debut on the surface at WTA Tour level when she produced a stunning display to defeat the 197th-ranked qualifier 6-1 6-2. The 19-year-old was victorious in her clay debut at the BJK Cup on Satuday but then suffered a right foot injury in her one-sided loss on day two of the tie, needing a medical time out and bathing her feet in "surgical spirit" after picking up severe blisters.

The world No 12 looked worlds away from her "redundant and helpless" self in Saturday's 6-1 6-1 loss to Marketa Vondrousova, as she managed to almost reverse the scoreline against Sanders. After blowing her 40-0 lead in the first game to find herself at deuce, Raducanu held on and managed to get an early break, saving her own break point at 3-1 and going on to take the first set 6-1 in just 30 minutes.

She carried her momentum into the second set, breaking in a lengthy 12-minute opening game that saw five deuces and four break point chances for the Brit, as Sanders continued to fire double faults and looked overpowered by the eighth seed. Raducanu won seven games in a row before the Aussie finally ended her run and got on the scoreboard for 2-1 in the second set but the US Open champion broke again, leading 5-1.

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Sanders held once more to win just her third game of the