Emma Raducanu joins Katie Boulter in Queen’s Club quarter-finals

By Rachel Steinberg, Press Association

British number one Emma Raducanu clinched a place in the HSBC Championships quarter-finals for a second straight year after securing a 6-4 6-2 win over Romanian Sorana Cirstea at the Queen’s Club.

There will be at least two Britons in the last eight after Katie Boulter also beat Cirstea’s compatriot, Jaqueline Cristian, 6-1 6-3.

They will be joined in Friday’s last-eight action by fellow Briton Harriet Dart or Uzbekistan’s Kamilla Rakhimova.

A washout of all of Thursday’s action meant a packed schedule on Friday, where all three British singles hopefuls needed to first come through their postponed last-16 clashes.

An animated and confident-looking Raducanu got out to a flying start, breaking her opponent’s serve at both earliest opportunities to go up 4-0 in the first set.

But Cirstea grew into the match, converting her third break point to halve the deficit, and began to get the better of the Briton in sustained rallies late in the first set.

Raudcanu claimed another break point to open the second set, holding Cirstea to love in the next game to set herself on course for victory, and was up a double break after the fifth game.

She upped her level, securing her second break and, buoyed by a strong first serve, closed in on the quarter-finals before Cirstea battled back to force another game.

Raducanu brought up two match points, punching her ticket to the next round with the second when Cirstea returned into the net.

Boulter will face top-seeded Elena Rybakina, who came through a tough battle with reigning HSBC champion Tatjana Maria, overcoming inconsistency and mistakes to beat the German – who got the best of her in last year’s quarter-finals – 6-7(4) 7-5 6-0.