Emma Raducanu melted in tears after having lagged behind very early during her confrontation at the Dubai tennis championships on Tuesday evening.
Raducanu entered the competition on the worst series of results in his career, after losing four successive games, but ended that of his round of 64 clashes.
She beat Maria Sakkari from Greece 6-4 6-2 in a fine way to establish equality with Karolina Muchova on Tuesday, but things did not go as planned for the 22-year-old at night.
His opponent ran in an advance at the start of 2-0 in the first set and, while the players made a brief break, Raducanu was seen wiping tears with his towel.
A visibly distraught Raducanu sat on his bench and spoke with the referee of the match before returning to his feet quickly and resuming the match.
We do not know why Raducanu was overwhelmed by emotion.
Emma Raducanu melted into tears after having lagged behind very early during her confrontation Tuesday evening
The British star lost two games in her match at the Dubai tennis championships
After a brief break, Raducanu wiped his tears and quickly resumed the game in Dubai
After having composed, Raducanu retaliated in the set but finally lost on 8-6 on an equality break, Muchova taking the first set 7-6.
Raducanu had not managed to capitalize on the entries of the Jokers in the tournaments in Abu Dhabi and Doha in the past two weeks, losing in the first round twice against Marketa Vondrousova and Ekaterina Alexandrova.
These defeats followed another defeat in the first round against Cristina Bucsa in Singapore and hammering by Iga Swiatek after reaching the third round of the Australian Open for the first time.
Raducanu remains without coach after Nick Cavaday resigned for health reasons.
While research continues, she is joined by her old friend and coach Jane O’Donoghue
More to follow …