The Emma Raducanu roll continued in spectacular fashion as she stormed past Olympic champion Belinda Bencic and into the US Open semi-finals.
The 18-year-old from Kent becomes the first qualifier in history to make the last four at this event after beating the Swiss 6-3, 6-4 in 82 minutes.
Notably managing better when playing into the sun than her opponent, it was another astonishingly mature performance, playing against the highest-ranked opponent she has ever faced.
Emma Raducanu’s US Open dream continued as she beat Belinda Bencic to reach the last four
Raducanu stormed beyond Olympic champion Bencic in just 82 minutes in the New York sun
Tackling the world No 11, she produced another sequence of games to turn a match around, recovering from 3-1 down in the first set.
‚Playing Belinda, she is such a great opponent and her ball speed definitely caught me off guard, I had to adjust and adapt,‘ she said. ‚I’m so glad to have come through.
‚I was 0-30 in my last couple of service games. I was just trying to focus on what I could control, I knew she would fight until the end.‘
Teenage sensation Raducanu is the first qualifier in history to reach the event’s semi-finals
Bencic eased into a 3-1 lead in the first set but became frustrated after several unforced errors
Next in wait is No 17 seed Maria Sakkari, on Friday morning, after the Greek convincingly defeated Karolina Pliskova.
The win takes her to the brink of the world’s top 50 and will make her officially the British No 1, having started Wimbleton ranked 338.
Radacanu had begun nervously, her groundstroke timing off and broken at the start as she had been in her previous round.
Bencic can be of undulating temperament but looked supremely assured up until 3-1, when the British teenager began to relax into the match while her opponent, out of the blue, became increasingly tight.
Raducanu shook off her nerves to take control of the match and played some superb tennis
Bencic couldn’t turn the momentum of the tie despite looking assured early in the first set
Having levelled, Raducanu played perhaps her best point of the tournament at 4-3 and deuce, carving out a frantic rally which resulted in a second break point. It was clinched by a forehand pass against the increasingly frazzled Swiss.
Bencic took a toilet break at the end of the set, although at just over two minutes it was not long enough to change the momentum in itself.
Raducanu got ahead by holding serve and then breaking down at the more difficult end where the sun was in her eyes.
She held again from 0-30 at 4-3 with superb serving under pressure, and did the same thing at 5-4 to close it out.
Raducanu’s win will make her officially the British No 1 and also saw her close in on the top 50
Bencic hit her racket into the ground midway through the second set as the tie slipped away
Re-live how Emma Raducanu reached semi-finals with Sportsmail’s DANIEL DAVIS…