Day 2 of the Australian Open treated tennis fans to some exhilarating action as reigning US Open women’s champion Emma Raducanu took on former US Open women’s champion Sloane Stephens in a seesawing match.

Britain’s Raducanu, the 17th seed in the tournament, began the match at Melbourne Park in a dominant fashion, winning the first set against the US’ Sloane in 17 minutes.

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However, Raducanu soon lost her control over the match as Sloane converted her fifth break point chance to open the second set in a 12-minute game that finished on a pair of double-faults from Raducanu.

Two early service breaks gave Raducanu a 5-0 lead and she served it out to finish the match in a bit less than two hours. Raducanu’s 6-0, 2-6, 6-1 victory over Sloane marked her first win of 2022.

Asked about her experience in her first match, Raducanu told media outlets, “I think 2022 is all about learning for me. Being in those situations of, you know, winning a set and then having to fight in a decider is definitely just all just accumulating into a bank of experience that I can tap into later on down the line. Yeah, very happy that today I can add to that.”

Raducanu will now face Danka Kovinic of Montenegro in the next round.

On the men’s tennis front, fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece wrapped up a convincing victory over Sweden’s Mikael Ymer, with a straight-sets win in the Rod Laver arena.

Tsitsipas’ involvement in the Australian Open was put into doubt following an elbow surgery in November 2021, but the Greek showed no sign of weakness as he beat Ymer 6-2, 6-4, 6-3 in a clinical victory.

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“There were a lot of rallies, a lot of ball exchanges, he [Ymer] gave me a hard time, he was going after every single ball and stayed in the match for as long as he could,” said the Greek after his victory, adding that he would be more “daring” in the matches to come.

Tsitsipas, who was a semi-finalist in last year’s Australian Open, will face Argentinian youngster Sebastian Baez in the second round.

[With AP inputs]