The five lowest ranked players to beat Emma Raducanu since she won the US Open after her defeat to Lin Zhu in Ningbo

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Emma Raducanu was beaten in the first round of the Ningbo Open by Chinese wildcard Lin Zhu.

Raducanu won the US Open in 2021, becoming the first player in history to win a Grand Slam title from qualifying.

The Briton has faced difficulties with injury and has struggled to find form since then, but Raducanu has shown great improvements this year and is now back inside the top 30 of the WTA rankings.

However, Raducanu saw an impressive streak come to an end in Wuhan and she has now faced another setback after losing in the first round of the Ningbo Open.

Emma Raducanu’s five lowest ranked defeats since winning the US Open

After struggling with illness in Wuhan, Raducanu was handed a seemingly kind first round draw at the WTA 500 tournament in Ningbo, where she would play world number 219, Zhu.

Zhu, who has recently spoken about retirement after dealing with her own injury setbacks, was handed a wildcard for the Ningbo Open as a Chinese player, and has been ranked as high as world number 31 just two years ago.

Showing some of her previous form and taking advantage of Raducanu’s condition, with the Briton clearly struggling with a back issue, Zhu was able to beat the former US Open champion, 3-6 6-4 6-1.

By ranking, this is one of the worst defeats of Raducanu’s career since winning the US Open, but it is not the worst.

That came at the Guadalajara Open in 2022, when Raducanu played former top 20 player Daria Saville, who was the world number 610 at the time.

Saville had fallen down the rankings after a hiatus from the WTA Tour following surgery on her achilles tendon, and was using a protected ranking to enter the Guadalajara Open.

After battling at high altitude for three hours and 36 minutes, Raducanu was forced to retire due to a hip injury, gifting Saville the victory for her efforts.

Saville and Zhu are the two lowest ranked players Raducanu has lost to since winning the US Open, but she has also lost to another player ranked outside the top 200 in Anna-Lena Friedsam at the Slovenia Open in 2022.

The other two names featuring on this list are Victoria Hruncakova, who like Saville beat Raducanu via retirement, and Lulu Sun.

Sun beat Raducanu at Wimbledon in 2024 as a qualifier, in another match where a back issue was really hampering the Briton.

Emma Raducanu’s five best victories in terms of ranking since winning the US Open

While Raducanu’s Asian swing has not gone the way she would have liked, having only won two matches, there are still a lot more positives than negatives to take from her 2025 season.

This includes picking some of her best wins by ranking, with Raducanu beating Emma Navarro at the Miami Open earlier this year, the same tournament where she also beat Amanda Anisimova.

Navarro was the third top 10 win of Raducanu’s career, but her best victory came against another American.

That was on grass, when Raducanu beat Jessica Pegula at the Eastbourne International in 2024 after saving a match point.

The 22-year-old nearly beat the American again in Beijing, but this time it was Pegula who saved match points to beat Raducanu.

Raducanu’s other best victories have come against Maria Sakkari at Wimbledon in 2024, Beatriz Haddad Maia at Indian Wells in 2023 and Daria Kasatkina on the clay of Strasbourg earlier this year.

It is now unclear as to whether there will be any more tournaments this year for Raducanu, who was praised for entering the WTA 250 event in Hong Kong as her final event of the year.

Raducanu had also received a wildcard for the WTA 500 tournament in Tokyo, but it appears that the Hong Kong Tennis Open is the only event left on her schedule.