Emma Raducanu must stay focussed after achieving early success, says Simona Halep

World no. 17 Simona Halep reckons US Open champion Emma Raducanu must stay focussed after achieving early success. Raducanu turned heads as she went on to win the US Open despite being a qualifier. The Brit won 10 matches in a row and didn’t even drop a single set on her way to glory and thus created history.

In fact, she became the first qualifier to win the US Open in the history of the tournament. Raducanu came up with her best and stunned everyone with her performance. The youngster showed great maturity in her play and brought her A-game to the court.

However, Raducanu went on to lose in the second round of BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells against Aliaksandra Sasnovich in straight sets by 2-6, 4-6. Thus, all the eyes are on Raducanu after out of the blue US Open victory and there will be some huge expectations on the youngster to keep the good show. Raducanu will need to make sure that she plays at the same level as she did during the US Open and prove that her big victory was not a flash in the pan moment.

“Yeah, I wish her luck,” Halep said. “She has to stay focused, because, yeah, many, many years ahead of tennis, so I’m sure that she will win more. But, yeah, will be a little bit tough when she feels the pressure, I think.”

Meanwhile, Halep has all the experience under her belt and advised Raducanu to stay in the moment and not get ahead of herself as she needs to be focussed to savor success.

“I won my first Grand Slam late. I won tournaments before, but you cannot compare (that) with the success of (a) Grand Slam,” Halep added. “I cannot really talk about that, but I feel like from my experience that you have to be extra focused after that (those) big successes, because you are so young and you don’t really have experience on winning titles, because I think (US Open 2021) was the first title for Emma, and (it) was a Grand Slam.”

Halep will take part in the Kremlin Cup, which will begin in Russia from Monday.