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Emma Raducanu cut a frustrated figure on Tuesday at the Hobart International as her first round match was suspended for the night due to rain with the Briton struggling to hold on to her precarious 6-3, 2-4 lead.
Raducanu, the top seed in Hobart, will return to the court on Wednesday afternoon hoping to close out her first win of the season. She lost her only match of 2026 to Maria Sakkari at the United Cup mixed-team competition last week. Afterwards, Raducanu explained how her pre-season had been badly disrupted by the foot injury she had been struggling with since she prematurely ended her 2025 season in October. The 22-year-old only began to play points and move properly in her training sessions once she arrived in Australia at the end of December.
With a week of training behind her, Raducanu had hoped to improve Hobart but the 23-year-old was still too tentative at times to swiftly close out an opponent ranked 60 places beneath her at No 89. Raducanu had started the match quite positively. Although the first set was tight, she played with greater freedom in the decisive moments, confidently dictating with her forehand and overpowering the diminutive Osorio.
Osorio was clearly under the weather on Tuesday and the match was soundtracked by the Colombian’s constant coughing fits, but the 24-year-old is a talented player and she raised her level significantly at the beginning of set two. Osorio forced herself into offensive positions inside the baseline, taking the ball earlier and injecting pace into her own forehand.
As the Colombian’s intensity and ball speed increased, Raducanu remained flat and passive, her length decreasing as she quickly fell down a double break to trail 1-4. The Briton retrieved one of the service breaks between one of their numerous rain delays before sustained, heavy rainfall left the organisers with no choice but to suspend the match until Wednesday.
Earlier, Venus Williams’ second appearance of the Australian swing proved to be far less positive than her first as she suffered a 6-4, 6-3 loss to Tatjana Maria in Hobart.
After seemingly ruling out the possibility of competing in Australia at the US Open last year, Williams surprised many by embarking on her first trip to Australia since 2021. She performed well last week in a tight three-set first round loss to Magda Linette in Auckland, New Zealand, but here Williams’s unforced error count was out of control against a cunning veteran in Maria, who slices the vast majority of both forehands and backhands, constantly forcing the American to generate her own pace.
With Williams 45 years old and Maria 38, this match was also notable due to the two players boasting a combined age of 83. A finalist in 2003, Williams will head to Melbourne for her 22nd appearance at the Australian Open.
Elsewhere, Lorenzo Musetti took the unusual step of retiring from an exhibition match while sparring with Alexander Zverev at the Australian Open. The Italian cited a lower back problem, sparking injury concerns for one of the highest-ranked young players ahead of the first grand slam of the year. Musetti broke into the top five for the first time in his career on the weekend after reaching the final of the Hong Kong Open, which he lost to Alexander Bublik.
