Emma Raducanu suffered a heavy defeat in just 52 minutes to Amanda Anisimova in the third round at Indian Wells. The British No 1 was well below par in a 6-1 6-1 loss to the American world No 6.
Raducanu, seeded 25, may have been struggling with a fitness issue as she repeatedly refused to chase down drop shots. The 23-year-old’s first serve misfired badly and she hit just two winners to her opponent’s 21.
“I think I can be very pleased with my performance today,” Anisimova said in her on-court interview. “I had a tough first round so just went out to be fearless. I wanted to enjoy it and wanted to keep the run going.”
The top seed, Aryna Sabalenka, eased into the last 16 with a 6-4 6-1 win over Romania’s Jaqueline Cristian. She will meet Naomi Osaka, who needed all three sets to get past Camila Osorio of Colombia 6-1 3-6 6-1.
“I can only say that I tried to be more positive,” said Osaka of the third set. “I feel like the second set I was complaining a lot and then I just kind of thought my daughter could be watching me mope around the court. So I needed to pick up my attitude and that’s kind of what I did in the third.”
In the men’s draw, the second seed, Jannik Sinner, needed just 71 minutes to book his place in the last 16 with a 6-3 6-2 win over Canada’s Denis Shapovalov.
“It’s a very tough second match for me,” Sinner said. “He’s a very high quality player … he had great wins in the past so I’m very happy about today’s performance.”
The fourth seed, Alexander Zverev, was made to work harder before beating Brandon Nakashima 7-6 5-7 6-4 in just over two and a half hours.
“He played a fantastic match today,” Zverev said of Nakashima, who had 17 aces to Zverev’s 15. “He served like I have never seen before. He was hitting his spots well. Every ace was more or less on the line for him, so I’ve got to give credit to him. He played a great match.”