Emma Raducanu suffers first-round exit at French Open

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

And just like that, Emma Raducanu is out.

The former world No. 10 and Grand Slam winner was dumped out of the French Open’s first round, losing to Solana Sierra of Argentina, 0-6, 6-7, on May 24, 2026, at Stade Roland-Garros in Paris, France.

For the first time in three French Open appearances, Raducanu exited the opening round and suffered a massive upset loss against world No. 68-ranked Sierra.

The first set was an uncharacteristic, error-prone display for Raducanu, who barely had any groundstroke rhythm while struggling to keep up with the clay court’s pace.

In an unexpected sequence of events, Sierra dominated Raducanu in just 25 minutes, pulling off a love-set opener for a momentum-boosting French Open start.

Fifteen unforced errors and zero winners in the first set alone? That tells the whole story.

Despite the bagel loss in the opener, Raducanu shifted gears in the second frame after staging a dramatic comeback midway through the set.

Raducanu trailed 1-4 and was almost bound for another horrendous outing, but a courageous 4-1 counterattack helped her equalize the set at 5-all.

From an erratic first-set showing, Raducanu minimized her unforced errors, leaning on a flat forehand return that caught Sierra off guard.

Raducanu’s resilient come-from-behind effort forced a deciding tiebreaker, but the British ace ran out of gas, allowing Sierra to zoom to a 5-1 lead.

Raducanu piled up her unforced error tally to 42 after the shocking loss, her worst Grand Slam performance since her 2021 debut at Wimbledon.

Sierra capped her stellar French Open start with 80 total points won, including six break points and 38 on the return.

On the other hand, Raducanu only had 62 points, suffered five double faults, and settled for a dismal 48% win rate on her first-serve possessions.