Raducanu keeps it clean, Osaka blinks: DC opener turns into a statement win

Two US Open champions met for the first time, and the younger one set the tone fast. Emma Raducanu beat Naomi Osaka 6-4, 6-2 on Thursday to reach the quarterfinals of the Mubadala Citi DC Open, a combined summer hard-court stop in Washington, D.C. The match lasted about one hour and twenty-five minutes, and it never really drifted away from Raducanu’s terms.

The scoreline tells a simple story: Raducanu protected her serve all night and picked the right moments on return. Ranked No. 46, she broke Osaka in the fifth game of the opener and never coughed up the lead, closing the first set 6-4. She then jumped on the second set with an immediate break, stretched it to 4-1 after striking again in the fifth game, and finished the job 6-2.

The serve was the foundation. Raducanu won 74% of her first-serve points and did not drop serve once. She faced only two break points and saved both with cool, first-strike tennis. The return game was sharp too—especially against the second serve—forcing Osaka to press and reach for lines that were not there.

Osaka’s raw power always makes her dangerous, but the consistency wavered. Seven double-faults hurt her rhythm and gave Raducanu short looks at the Osaka second serve. The British player kept the ball deep, redirected pace off both wings, and used the backhand crosscourt to pin Osaka into longer exchanges. From there, errors began to arrive, and the gap widened.

Neither player needed a tiebreak. There were no marathon games to save the Japanese star. Instead, Raducanu did the quiet, steady work—first-strike holds and clean shot selection on the big points—while Osaka spent too many points defending from behind the baseline after soft second serves.

Here’s what stood out on paper:

• Match time: about 1 hour 25 minutes
• Raducanu: 74% of first-serve points won
• Raducanu: 0 service games lost; 2 break points faced, 2 saved
• Osaka: 7 double-faults
• Raducanu: 3 breaks of serve secured

This kind of efficiency matters in Washington’s heat. The day session conditions in late July can be sticky and punishing, and players who keep service games short tend to have fresher legs late in sets. Raducanu managed that part well, mixing body serves with flatter wide deliveries to open the court.

The first career meeting between these two felt overdue. Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion, has been rebuilding her tour rhythm after time away. Raducanu, the 2021 US Open winner, has been clawing back form and confidence through the season. On this day, the margins tilted heavily toward the Brit because her serve held firm and her return kept Osaka off balance.

Raducanu arrived in this round by beating No. 7 seed Marta Kostyuk 7-6(4), 6-4 in the first round—handing the Ukrainian a sixth straight defeat and a fifth consecutive first-round exit. Osaka came in off a straight-sets win of her own, 6-2, 7-5 over Yulia Putintseva, where her first-strike tennis clicked far more often than it did against Raducanu.

The British player’s record in Washington keeps trending upward. This is her third quarterfinal of the season and her third consecutive quarterfinal at the DC Open. In her last two visits, she bowed out to the eventual champions—Liudmila Samsonova in 2022 and Paula Badosa in 2024. So the deeper she goes here, the more it lines up with a pattern: when she loses in D.C., it usually takes the player who wins the whole thing to stop her.

The tactical layer looked familiar to anyone who watched Raducanu’s best runs. She returned from inside the baseline when she could, took time away on Osaka’s second serve, and used early backhand strikes to switch direction. There was little overhit desperation; instead, it was tempo control and tidy footwork, keeping errors low and opponents uncomfortable.

Sakkari next: a familiar matchup, and bigger stakes for the summer swing

Maria Sakkari is next in the quarterfinals, a former world No. 3 in the draw as a wild card. Raducanu holds a 3-0 head-to-head and hasn’t dropped a set in those meetings. Their most famous clash, the 2021 US Open semifinal, turned on the same themes we just saw in Washington: Raducanu got ahead early, neutralized first strikes, and handled scoreboard pressure with calm shotmaking.

Sakkari brings different problems than Osaka. She’s one of the tour’s best athletes, built for long rallies and physical exchanges. Her forehand can force short replies, and her first serve can put her in control from the jump. If Raducanu manages first-serve percentage and keeps Sakkari on the back foot with depth and direction changes, the matchup history could hold. If the first serve dips, the Greek player’s pressure game, especially on second-serve returns, will bite.

Game plans rarely decide matches on their own, but a few checkpoints feel clear for the quarterfinal:

• Protect the first serve: shorten service games and deny Sakkari rhythm on return.
• Own the second serve battle: step in on Sakkari’s second serve; avoid short second serves in the ad court.
• Backhand steerage: use the backhand to change direction early and keep rallies away from Sakkari’s forehand pattern.
• Scoreboard discipline: stay tidy at 30-all and deuce; Sakkari thrives in long, physical deuce games.

Beyond the matchup, the stakes are clear. Washington is one of the launchpads for the North American hard-court swing. The points and momentum here feed straight into August, when the calendar tightens with big draws and even bigger fields. A confident quarterfinal or better in D.C. can set up a strong Montreal–Cincinnati run and a cleaner build toward New York.

For Osaka, the loss offers film to study before the next stop. The double-faults were the headline number, but the bigger picture was first-ball execution after serve. When she landed a heavy first delivery, rallies tilted her way; when she didn’t, Raducanu took control early. Cleaning up the second serve and getting more first serves in will turn plenty of those neutral points back into Osaka’s kind of baseline punches.

The DC Open also had other storylines in play on Thursday. Venus Williams, a seven-time Grand Slam singles winner, was scheduled for the evening session against Magdalena Frech, marking a new step in her return to tour at age 45. On the men’s side, No. 8 seed Daniil Medvedev and No. 14 seed Brandon Nakashima moved through their matches as the ATP draw began to harden into a busy weekend slate. The joint event feel—crowds bouncing between courts, day-to-night sessions in the heat—added to the energy around Raducanu–Osaka.

Conditions matter in Washington, and we saw why. The ball can get lively in the afternoon but slow as humidity rises, which rewards players who take the ball early and stick to patterns that don’t require risky line-painting. Raducanu’s approach fit that template—early contact, deep returns, and a focus on first serves and first strikes—while Osaka’s best swings needed more first-serve help than she got on the day.

One more layer: this win keeps Raducanu’s 2025 narrative pointed upward. She has now reached three quarterfinals this season, with clean numbers behind the progress. The serve looks stronger, the return game more proactive, and the shot tolerance higher in 4–6 ball exchanges. That’s what coaches look for in July—habits that can survive a pressure spike when the lights get brighter in August.

The quarterfinal against Sakkari will test those habits. Sakkari’s serve is less streaky than Osaka’s on average, and her rally patterns are built to expose thin margins. But the matchup history favors Raducanu for a reason: her ability to flatten the backhand, absorb pace without losing court position, and pull Sakkari out of her forehand patterns has worked before. If she keeps the first-serve numbers in the ballpark we saw against Osaka, the door will be open again.

For now, the scoreboard is simple. One player took care of her own serve, leaned on the return when it mattered, and didn’t let a four-time major winner back into the match. Washington can be unforgiving like that—small dips turn into big deficits. Raducanu didn’t dip.

Next up: another big name, another measuring stick. And with the hard-court summer officially underway, the timing could hardly be better.