Emma Raducanu came closer to a title on home soil than the scoreline suggests, saving four championship points across the second set and a tiebreak before ultimately falling to Donna Vekic at the HSBC Championships at Queen’s Club in London.
The final score of 6-0, 7-6 tells only part of the story. Raducanu was outplayed comprehensively in the opening set but refused to surrender the match in the second, fighting back from the brink repeatedly before the Croatian, who entered the tournament as a lucky loser, closed it out in a tiebreak. It was the first grass-court final of Raducanu’s career and only the third tour-level final of her life.
The cost of Saturday’s double duty
The result cannot be separated from the circumstances leading into it. Rain disruptions earlier in the tournament forced Raducanu to play two matches on Saturday, defeating two opponents in succession to reach the final. By the time Sunday arrived, she had spent two hours and 19 minutes more on court than Vekic during the previous day, while her opponent had needed just over an hour to complete her semifinal.
Raducanu took to the court wearing a patch on her left thigh, the same location that had drawn attention during her semifinal win, and while she deflected detailed questions about her physical condition, the signs of fatigue were visible in the opening set. The home crowd at Queen’s Club was vocal in its support from the first game, and Raducanu acknowledged that the energy inside the grounds had pushed her further than she might otherwise have managed.
A second set that produced extraordinary drama
Whatever was happening physically, Raducanu’s competitive spirit was fully present in the second set. She forced Vekic to serve for the match and then saved a series of championship points to extend the proceedings. When the set moved to a tiebreak, the tension in the arena was palpable. Raducanu saved yet another championship point inside the tiebreak and at one moment appeared on the verge of taking it to a deciding third set before Vekic ultimately converted.
For a player carrying an injury, playing her third match in two days, and looking for her first title since one of the most stunning runs in modern tennis history at the 2021 US Open, the effort required to get that close was considerable.
A season with difficult chapters
The Queen’s Club final represented a rare bright moment in what has been an inconsistent 2026 season for Raducanu. She reached a final in February but lost, and then a post-viral illness kept her away from the tour for approximately two and a half months. She had accumulated just one victory since March before arriving at Queen’s Club this week and turning that form entirely on its head.
Raducanu is 23 and has shown repeatedly that her ceiling remains as high as any player on the women’s tour when healthy and confident. The challenge she faces is finding the consistency to stay on court long enough for that level to become the expectation rather than the exception.
Sunday’s result stings precisely because she was so close. Four championship points saved, a tiebreak that went to the wire, a home crowd that believed until the final point. The title went to Vekic, but the afternoon belonged in many ways to the player who came up just short of claiming it.
