Emma Raducanu struggled with injury as she slumped out of the Slovenia Open in a second-round 7-5 0-6 6-3 loss to Anna-Lena Friedsam.

The 2021 US Open champion has faced an uphill battle on the WTA Tour this year and suffered another setback in Portoroz, where she was the top seed, playing the latter two sets with her left thigh strapped after a medical time-out.

A recovery looked possible when Raducanu cruised through a second-set bagel, yet the 19-year-old succumbed in the decider.

Raducanu's defeat follows a first-round exit at Flushing Meadows in a dismal attempt to defend her title.

Friedsman's win, meanwhile, secures the world number 213's first appearance in the quarter-finals of a Tour-level event since she lost in the final of the Lyon Open in 2020. It was also her second victory over Raducanu.

Diane Parry will face Friedsman in the last eight, after she overcame Anastasia Potapova, while Katerina Siniakova – who last week completed a career Grand Slam in doubles at the US Open – defeated Jodie Burrage.

Meanwhile, reigning champion Jasmine Paolini overcame a tie-break finale against Kaja Juvan. The Italian fought back to win 5-7 6-2 7-6 (7-5) to stay on course for a successful title defence.

At the Chennai Open, Anastasia Gasanova failed to back up her first-round win over top seed Alison Riske-Amritraj with another success, as Britain's Katie Swan edged her 7-6 (7-5) 6-2.

That sets up a quarter-final clash with qualifier Nao Hibino.

The top two seeds left in the competition, Magda Linette and Tatjana Maria, also progressed on Thursday.

Emma Raducanu was not able to see out victory against Dayana Yastremska at the Slovenia Open as her opponent retired when two points from defeat.

Raducanu, returning to action after a first-round loss at the US Open, where she had been the defending champion, looked set to ease past Yastremska.

The Briton did advance to the second round, but only courtesy of a premature conclusion to the match.

Raducanu led 6-2 5-3 and was 30-0 up in her own service game when Yastremska retired, complaining of a wrist injury.

Yastremska has previously been accused of gamesmanship for similar antics; of her now six career mid-match retirements, all have come with her a break down and about to lose, with four coming in a potentially decisive game.

Her decision to quit at this year's Australian Open was particularly unpopular, with Madison Brengle on the brink of inflicting a third-set bagel.

However, Raducanu did not look to criticise Yastremska after this latest contentious finale.

"Obviously no one wants to win by retirement," the top seed said. "But Dayana is an extremely ferocious competitor, so I knew it was going to be a tough match going in."

Fellow seeds Beatriz Haddad Maia, Ekaterina Alexandrova and Anastasia Potapova all also progressed in Portoroz.

At the Chennai Open, only eighth seed Chloe Paquet was subject to a scalp against Karman Kaur Thandi, with Rebecca Peterson and Eugenie Bouchard among the other victors.

Emma Raducanu tried to focus on the positives after seeing her US Open defence ended at the first hurdle, suggesting "the target will be off my back" as she prepares to tumble down the WTA rankings.

The teenager sensationally won at Flushing Meadows in 2021 without dropping a set, yet that remains her sole Tour-level title a year on.

And any hopes of a remarkable repeat were swiftly dashed by first-round opponent Alize Cornet, who brushed the 11th seed aside 6-3 6-3 on Tuesday.

But Raducanu is relishing the opportunity to build her career again without her status as a reigning major champion.

"[It is] obviously really disappointing, [I am] really sad to leave here," Raducanu said afterwards. "It's probably my favourite tournament.

"But also, in a way, [I am] happy, because it's a clean slate. I'm going to drop down the rankings, climb my way back up.

"Yeah, in a way, the target will be off my back slightly. Yeah, I just have another chance to claw my way back up there.

"I've been doing some really good work in the last six weeks especially. [I am] just looking forward to putting more of those weeks together consistently, then we'll see what happens."

Indeed, Raducanu claimed her 2022 season might have been considered a success had she not set such a high standard in New York last year.

She has played two quarter-finals this year, losing to Iga Swiatek in Stuttgart and Liudmila Samsonova in Washington D.C.

"It is a clean slate. I can just start again," Raducanu said. "I don't know what my ranking will be – probably pretty low down.

"With perspective, actually as a 19-year-old, I've had not a bad year. To be top 100, if you told me that a year ago, I'd take it.

"But I think it would be nice in a way to just start over, start fresh. Off the court, I don't think it will make much of a difference, to be honest."

She added: "I actually think, for me, the most exciting thing is trying to do well at each of the different tournaments.

"Regardless of what it is – it sounds weird – [as] US Open defending champion, obviously it would have been great to defend the title, but I want new experiences.

"In a way, I've kind of done that [winning the US Open], so I want another tournament.

"It doesn't really matter what it is. I think any player would be happy to win a tournament. I think it makes a massive difference, no matter what the level is."

Reigning US Open champion Emma Raducanu has been eliminated in the first round after going down in straight sets 6-3 6-3 against Alize Cornet on Tuesday.

Raducanu struggled with both her serve and her ground strokes early on against her French opponent.

She won just 40 per cent (10-of-25) of her service points in the opening set, while committing 18 unforced errors with seven winners as she had her serve broken three times.

After footage emerged of Raducanu distressed during a recent training session due to blisters and hand issues, it was no surprise to see her call for a medical timeout between the sets, needing some running repairs and fresh band-aids.

The women traded breaks of serve continuously throughout the match, with four breaks from the first five games of the second set, but every time Raducanu gained any momentum, Cornet would answer immediately.

For the match, Raducanu only held serve twice from nine attempts. Cornet will meet Katerina Siniakova in the second round.

Data Slam: Raducanu hits cold stretch at the worst time

It was not a great preparation for her maiden grand slam title defence, with Raducanu now collecting four straight-sets losses from her past six matches.

The 19-year-old has had a disappointing season, and has not won three matches in a row since last year's US Open.

WINNERS/UNFORCED ERRORS

Raducanu – 15/30

Cornet – 22/22

ACES/DOUBLE FAULTS

Raducanu – 2/2 

Cornet – 1/9

BREAK POINTS WON

Raducanu – 4/6

Cornet – 7/10

Emma Raducanu can deal with the high expectations around her but needs to find a coach and stick with them, according to former British number one John Lloyd.

Raducanu is set to defend her US Open title at Flushing Meadows as the final grand slam of the year gets underway on Monday.

The teenager's sensational success at the 2021 tournament as a qualifier came from nowhere, but she has been unable to replicate it since, having not won any further singles titles.

In fact, she has not even been beyond the quarter-finals of any slam or WTA Tour event since her extraordinary success.

Lloyd still struggles to comprehend her achievement.

Speaking to Stats Perform, Lloyd said: "When you win a slam the expectations are going to go through the roof, that's just the way it is.

"She achieved something, I'd liken it to Rocky, it was very similar. People have sent me film scripts like the one Wimbledon, the tennis film that came out, and I told the person, they sent me the script six months before, I said, 'This is stupid, stop coming up with these movies where you get some guy or woman comes up from the qualifiers and wins a grand slam, it doesn't happen, it's stupid, it's never going to happen.' And then she goes and does it.

"What she achieved was amazing, but she did it almost like getting an A in a test without doing the homework. She really didn't do the homework to get there.

"She hasn't done the miles yet, and her body hasn't, the toughness hasn't come. She went above it before she was ready in some ways, but she's already got it, that's in her pocket now. She is a slam winner and no-one can take that away from her.

"The expectations are unbelievably high, and they're going be and she has to face that fact, she can’t hide it, she's a slam winner so people are going to expect, but people in the game know that it was going be a tough year [for her]."

The 19-year-old split from her coach Torben Beltz in April after just six months, saying she needed "a new training model" and she has been working with Dmitry Tursunov on a trial basis in the last month.

Beltz became the third coach to move on from working with Raducanu in just 12 months after she swapped Nigel Sears for Andrew Richardson, who had been in her corner at last year's US Open.

Lloyd acknowledges there is not necessarily a right way to do things in tennis, though he is certainly not convinced by Raducanu's approach of choosing a new coach every few months.

"I'm not a big fan of the coaching situation," Lloyd added. "After what Richard Williams did [coaching Venus and Serena Williams] … to say that there's a norm, he threw that out the window.

"What they're doing now in coaching is almost like they're getting hold of coaches, soaking up like a sponge all the information they have and then they go onto the next. I don't think that works in tennis. I could be proved wrong, but I don't think that's right.

"You have to have coaches that you trust completely, because I think a lot of winning matches – I don't want to give too much credit to coaches because it's the person on the court that does the work – but I think a lot of matches are won by the night before the match, and even the morning of the match… you have a trust a coach and what they're saying to you.

"You're a unit, and I don't think chopping and changing having a different coach every three months is the right way to go about. I could be wrong but I think she has to have a settled coach."

Emma Raducanu played down injury concerns on the eve of the US Open after the defending champion suffered discomfort during practice on Friday.

Raducanu enjoyed a meteoric rise at Flushing Meadows last year, becoming the first qualifier to win a grand slam as she claimed an unexpected victory in New York.

The British number one overcame Leylah Fernandez in last year's final, clinching a breakthrough success after reeling off 10 consecutive wins without dropping a single set.

But her hopes of defending the title appeared under threat when she twice stopped her session with Ekaterina Alexandrova on Friday, being consoled by coach Dmitry Tursunov after appearing upset by pain in her right hand.

Raducanu headed off court for treatment before returning to complete the session, and insists she is not worried by the episode. 

"I had a few small things, got a couple of blisters, a bit of a niggle here and there," she explained. "It's just one of those weird days where you just feel a bit out of it.

"I can't really explain myself, to be honest. I'm sure everyone in this room has probably had a day like that. I have no concerns of an issue, no."

Raducanu has endured an inconsistent year to date, suffering several niggling injuries and posting 13 wins and 15 defeats in 2022.

While the 19-year-old is not looking to inflate expectations ahead of the US Open, she expressed her delight at returning to the scene of her greatest triumph.

"It's really nice to be back in New York," Raducanu added. "It's great for me to come here having done a year on the tour, having played most of the tournaments.

"I'm really happy with what I've done this year and how I've come out of certain situations. I've obviously got amazing memories in New York.

"I think defending a title is just something that the press makes up. I'm just taking it one match at a time. 

"Every single player is very capable in this draw. I just focus on what I'm doing, my own trajectory. As I said last year, I'm just going to do things my way."

Raducanu, who claimed notable victories over Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka in Cincinnati last week, will face Alize Cornet in the first round at Flushing Meadows. 

Emma Raducanu is playing better tennis now than when she won the US Open last year, according to six-time major champion Kim Clijsters.

British number one Raducanu enjoyed a meteoric rise at Flushing Meadows last year, becoming the first qualifier to win a grand slam as she claimed an unexpected victory in New York.

She reeled off 10 straight matches without dropping a single set, overcoming the likes of Olympic gold medalist Belinda Bencic and Maria Sakkari before seeing off Leylah Fernandez in the final.

Difficult form and injuries have prevented the 19-year-old from truly building on the momentum of that triumph, though, with the world number 11 boasting a modest 13-15 record in her first full year on the tour.

Nevertheless, she claimed notable victories over Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka in Cincinnati last week ahead of her US Open title defence, which begins against Alize Cornet in the opening round.

And former world number one Clijsters empathises with Raducanu, who she feels needs time to adjust to life in the higher echelons of the sport.

"She's already done a lot more in the lead-up to the US Open than she did last year, she has beaten a lot of good players," Clijsters told Reuters.

"She is maturing as a tennis player. I think her tennis is better now than it was when she won the US Open.

"When you have such a life-changing experience – and I'm not talking about what happens on the court, but everything else that gets added to that, even if she doesn't change, people around you change.

"People look at you differently. People on the tour look at you differently, whether she goes to a tournament in Luxembourg, or in Australia. Everybody knows her.

"Those big changes in life take time to get used to. It's so unrealistic the expectations that are on her because when you play a sport, you go out there and you have an opponent who's trying to win just as hard as you."

While Clijsters believes the teenager would do well to successfully defend her title, the three-time US Open winner is confident she will embrace the challenge.

"Is she going to win the US Open? It would be incredible if she did, but there's a lot of other players out there who have just as much chance as her," said Clijsters, whose last US Open success came in 2010.

"So, it will just be a matter of seeing whether she deals with that emotion of being at the slam and the expectations of it? She might be super excited to be there, and then play really free and without any pressure."

Serena Williams will face Danka Kovinic in the first round as the American great begins her final US Open campaign.

It will be a final grand slam for 40-year-old Williams, who has won six singles titles in New York and been a runner-up on four occasions.

Her first singles crown in a major came as a 17-year-old at Flushing Meadows, when she beat Martina Hingis in the 1999 final.

Now the end of a glorious career is beckoning for the 23-time singles major winner, who has also landed 16 doubles grand slam titles.

Kovinic is the world number 80 from Montenegro, with the 27-year-old having only won two matches at the US Open in four previous main-draw appearances.

The winner of that match will likely face Estonian second seed Anett Kontaveit in round two. Kontaveit's first-round opponent will be Romanian Jaqueline Adina Cristian.

Defending champion Emma Raducanu, who was a shock winner last year, faces a tricky first-round assignment against France's Alize Cornet.

Cornet is the tour veteran who beat Iga Swiatek at Wimbledon, ending the Pole's 37-match winning streak, and this will be her 64th consecutive grand slam appearance, a record for WTA Tour players.

World number one Swiatek starts against Italian Jasmine Paolini and could face 2017 US Open champion Sloane Stephens in round two.

Former champion Naomi Osaka, unseeded this year, was paired with Danielle Collins, the 19th seed who was an Australian Open runner-up at the start of the year.

The tournament gets under way on Monday.

Men's defending champion Daniil Medvedev faces American Stefan Kozlov in his opener, while Rafael Nadal, who has not lost a grand slam match all year, faces Australian wild card Rinky Hijikata.

Nadal won the Australian Open and French Open titles before pulling out of Wimbledon ahead of his semi-final against Australian Nick Kyrgios due to an abdominal tear.

That handed Kyrgios a bye through to face Novak Djokovic, who got the better of the Australian, but the Serbian must miss the US Open because his refusal to be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus meant he would not be allowed to enter the United States.

Djokovic's absence was confirmed shortly before the draw was revealed.

Fast-rising Spanish teenager Carlos Alcaraz begins against Argentina's Sebastian Baez, while fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas will face a yet-to-be-determined qualifier.

Emma Raducanu is making a "natural transition" to the WTA Tour, says former British number one Laura Robson.

Raducanu became a grand slam winner in just her second major appearance when she defeated fellow teenager Leylah Fernandez in last year's US Open final, and the first qualifier to win the women's singles at Flushing Meadows.

Since then, the 19-year-old has cracked the top 10 of the WTA Rankings, but has otherwise endured a mixed run of form, with a last-16 exit in the Western and Southern Open her latest result ahead of a return to New York, while she has also changed coaches in a season that has so far failed to produce a trophy.

But Robson thinks they are mere teething troubles for Raducanu, arguing that her difficulties have been blown out of proportion.

"I wouldn't say she struggled," Robson told Stats Perform. "I think she's making it a natural transition to the main tour.

"Emma came through so quickly, then struggling to catch up to the day-to-day life of being a professional tennis player, which is a lot of time away from home, a lot of training weeks, a lot of travel.

"She hasn't been able to put that time in. I thought she played great last week in Washington, and unfortunately, had a very tough draw against Camila Georgi in the first round last night.

"But I think she's playing some great tennis. So, I feel when she's back on the courts at US Open, they really suit her and hopefully some positive vibes will help as well."

Robson, a former Junior Wimbledon champion in 2008, won the WTA Newcomer of the Year prize in 2012 after claiming a silver medal alongside Andy Murray in the mixed doubles at London 2012, but ultimately struggled with a succession of injuries before her retirement this year.

She is loathe to draw parallels between her own experiences and those of Raducanu but hopes time can be afforded to the youngster.

"I mean, I wouldn't even compare my situation to hers, because Emma came through so quickly that it feels like she's only just catching her breath," she added.

"She just needs time to manage her own expectations. I hope she's not even thinking about anyone else's expectations because they really don't matter in the grand scheme of things.

"I think she just needs a good amount of training work, which I know she has been doing anyway. And the results will come because they think she's an incredible ball striker and a great athlete as well."

Play Your Way to Wimbledon, Powered by Vodafone is the largest individual mass participation tennis competition in the UK – delivered by Vodafone in partnership with the LTA and The All England Lawn Tennis Club.

Emma Raducanu admitted she has been "too tense" in recent defeats and is aiming to play more freely as she prepares to defend her US Open title.

Raducanu has struggled to follow up last year's shock win at Flushing Meadow, but she appears to have hit form at just the right time.

The 19-year-old has beaten both Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka in straight sets during this week's Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati, dropping just four games against Williams and two against Azarenka.

Her win against Azarenka on Wednesday was just Raducanu's third career victory against a top-25 opponent, after beating Belinda Bencic and Maria Sakkari on her way to winning last year's US Open.

Speaking after her win against the Belarusian, Raducanu said: "I think I have tried a lot of things, and this year I think some matches, I have lost a lot of matches from leading situations and probably just played too tense.

"I think that I just need to swing, and I just said that these two tournaments, or this tournament especially, I'm just going to swing freely and take that and see what happens."

Raducanu also said she will wait until after the tournament to reflect on beating two multiple grand slam champions with relative ease.

"I think after the tournament I actually have to take a step back and be like, 'Look, you just beat two unbelievable champions'," she said. "It's a pretty good achievement. You know how difficult the wins are to come by."

The number 10 seed will face seventh seed Jessica Pegula in the third round in Cincinnati on Thursday.