Emma Raducanu 'felt like head was in an oven' while having vitals checked at Citi Open

Emma Raducanu has opened up on the extreme conditions she battled through to beat Maria Sakkari in the Citi Open quarter-finals on Friday. The Brit had her vitals checked during a medical time-out in the second set as searing temperatures reached 36 degrees Celsius in Washington DC.

But after rising from her chair, she won the next three games to come out a 6-4 7-5 winner and sail through to her first hard-court semi-final since 2022. Raducanu and her tennis rivals played in the sweltering heat at Wimbledon earlier this month, but she insists the conditions on America's east coast were even worse.

"Different level. Different level," she said in her post-match press conference. "I think the humidity here, as well, it just makes it feel completely like you have just opened an oven and it just stayed open and your head is in there. That's how it feels."

Raducanu added: "I would like to say I'm pretty good in the heat, for the most part, but I was really struggling today. It was one of the toughest matches conditions-wise I have ever played in.

"Those points in the second set, I was getting a bit wobbly. Yeah, I'm just happy I could close it out and it was two sets. I think you get to a point where you're so tired that you don't really know what you're doing anymore, and I think maybe that helped. I was also thinking if this goes to three sets, I don't know how I'm going to do it."

Raducanu is due to take to the court for a women's doubles semi-final alongside Elena Rybakina later in the day, but the 22-year-old cast doubt over whether she will be in a fit state to compete. "I'm not feeling the best right now, so I just need to go and speak to the doctors," she said.

The Brit, who is now up to 32nd in the WTA's live rankings, is playing some of the best tennis she has shown since winning the US Open in 2021. And she is understandably over the moon with her impressive run in the USA.

She said: "The quality of opponents I have played in the last three rounds, I have played three great matches to be here in the semi-finals, and it is the first semis in a long time. So I'm really proud of that and just happy that all the hard work I have been doing is starting to pay off."