Emma Raducanu had a “very easy draw” when she won the US Open, Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk claimed after reaching her first Grand Slam quarter-final. The British star became the first qualifier to ever win a Major at the 2021 US Open without facing a player ranked in the top ten. Raducanu, then 18 and ranked world No.150, beat fellow teenager and world No.73 Leylah Fernandez in the final.
The Canadian had beaten three top five players – Aryna Sabalenka, Naomi Osaka and Elina Svitolina – before losing to Raducanu. The Brit is now down at world No 296 and has not got beyond the second round in any Grand Slam since her Major triumph.
Kostyuk beat Russian qualifier Maria Timofeeva 6-2 6-1 to set up a clash with Coco Gauff. The US Open champion said earlier in the tournament that she realised when she won her first Major title last September that you don’t have to play perfect tennis every match.
Asked about this observation, Kostyuk said: “It’s every day and every slam and every tournament is so unique and so different. Everything is different. Someone can have a very easy draw, and someone can have extremely difficult. I have an easiest example of when Leylah and Emma were playing the final, what draw Leylah had and what draw Emma had. Emma, no offence, but Leylah was really fighting for her life every single match.
“I think there are players who really win this Grand Slam and they’re like: ‘Wow, I don’t think I will ever recover from this physically and emotionally’. There are players who are, like: ‘Oh, it was fine, I might do it again’. I think it’s so unique. I wish I experienced this to give you a proper answer, but I’m working for it. We will see.
“The first three matches that I had were extremely difficult. Today, for example, I had it much easier. I was, like: ‘Oh, okay, well deserved, you know’. Then we see. I don’t know. I have three more to go. We will see. Maybe I will sit here in one week and be like, Oh, you know, it was not that bad. It was actually easy. We will see.”
Kostyuk and fellow Ukrainians Elina Svitolina and Dayana Yastremska are using the profiles from their performances here to try and refocus attention on the Russian invasion of her country.
“I hope so because it really seems for a lot of people that it’s over,” she said. “Something incredible happened. Ukraine managed to not be captured in three days. Kyiv as well. So it was kind of like all a miracle. I feel like it’s not a miracle anymore, so why talk about it? Yeah, I hope that the girls can keep on doing what they’re doing and reminding as much as possible.
“I had a very long break because I finished my season in Beijing, and I only restarted in Brisbane. I was out for almost three months. I really wasn’t around these players. I wasn’t on tour, so you get used to not being on tour.
“It was not talked about at all. When I came back, I was, like: ‘Wow, okay, everyone is back to normal life like nothing happened ever.
“I think it’s not right. I think that it’s not easy for specifically for me – I will talk about myself – that in order to bring out as thorough information as I can on everything that’s going on in Ukraine, I need to follow the news all the time, and I need to know what’s going on because I don’t have anyone calling me from Ukraine, like: ‘Hello, Marta, this, this, this happened today, these are the highlights or whatever’.
“I have to go through all the information myself and see what’s the best way to present it to people so they understand it in the easiest way. It’s an extra duty that I have that I don’t think other players from other countries have
“Sometimes the news are not great, and it can really, really shift the mood and shift your fighting spirit and so on because there are times where you really are like on the edge of giving up and on the edge of not understanding why the world is like this and not the other way. I just try to grow through it and I try to establish myself in different ways, not even for people, but for myself, first of all.I think we will just keep on going and winning.”
