Emma Raducanu ended the worst losing streak of her career as the former US Open champion defeated Maria Sakkari in straight sets at the Dubai Tennis Championships.
The former British number one came into the WTA 1000 event on the back of four straight losses to Ekaterina Alexandrova, Marketa Vondrousova, Cristina Bucsa and Iga Swiatek, last achieving victory exactly a month ago at the Australian Open.
Raducanu accepted a wild card for the Dubai Championships in the hope of snapping her career-worst sequence, and the 22-year-old finally got back on track as she eased past Sakkari 6-4 6-2.
Raducanu extended her 100% head-to-head record over the Greek to 3-0 in the process, having also triumphed over Sakkari in the 2021 US Open semi-finals and in the third round of Wimbledon last year.
Reflecting on her perfect streak against Sakkari, Raducanu said on the court: "We play quite similar. She's really athletic. I think I'm not necessarily going to give all my tactics away, but it's just a very difficult match every time we play so I'm happy to have won on these occasions in all big tournaments."
The 22-year-old's reward for conquering the former world number three will be a second-round battle with 14th seed Karolina Muchova, whom she has never faced on the WTA Tour before.
How Raducanu ended career-worst losing run in Dubai
As far as perfect starts go in tennis, Raducanu could not have enjoyed a more perfect start against Sakkari, breaking the two-time major semi-finalist to love in the opening game of the match.
Raducanu maintained her two-game advantage until Sakkari broke back for 3-3 in the sixth, but the Greek could not build on that brief fightback as she lost serve to love again immediately after.
There would be no second reprieve for Sakkari as Raducanu clinched the opener with her first set point, before kicking off the second set just as she did the first with a quick break to 15.
Once again Sakkari managed to claw her way back into the contest, levelling at 2-2, and once again she failed to keep the momentum going, being broken straight away once more by a fired-up Raducanu.
That critical fifth-game win in the second set triggered an unstoppable surge from the Briton, who also won each of the next three games and only required one match point to complete the job in one hour and 29 minutes.
Raducanu did not miss any of her 18 second serves in the first-round battle and also displayed a cutting edge on her returning side, converting five of the seven break points that she managed to fashion.
The 22-year-old also committed a mere 12 unforced errors, while Sakkari made 32 such mistakes as her main-draw record worsened to 3-7 for the 2025 season.
