In her third appearance at the Miami Open, Emma Raducanu claimed her first win, defeating 19-year-old wild card Sayaka Ishii 6-2, 6-1 in just 65 minutes.

Miami: Scores | Draws | Order of play

The former US Open champion will face No. 8 seed Emma Navarro in the second round, her first meeting with a Top 10 player since losing to Iga Swiatek in the Australian Open third round.

“It’s going to be an extremely challenging match,” Raducanu said in her on-court interview. “She’s probably in better form, so I can go out and express myself and try and compete for every point.”

In Raducanu’s previous Miami appearances, the Briton fell in a pair of three-set barnburners — to Katerina Siniakova in the 2022 second round, and to Bianca Andreescu in the 2023 first round. Against Ishii, there were no such twists and turns. The Japanese teenager, who has improved from No. 381 to her current No. 188 over the past 12 months, was contesting her third WTA main draw, having already reached the Tokyo quarterfinals on home soil last October.

Ishii showed her potential with some heavy forehands early on, but Raducanu responded with a near-flawless serving display, slamming down six aces across the match. Ishii was unable to sustain the accuracy of her early aggression, committing 24 unforced errors in total.

More to come…