Raducanu pulls double duty to reach Queen's final, set first meeting with Vekic

Emma Raducanu went two-for-two Saturday. First, she defeated Kamilla Rakhimova in straight sets to reach the semifinals before returning to Andy Murray Arena for a second match and knocking off No. 6 seed Iva Jovic 6-2, 6-2 in 1 hour and 31 minutes to advance to her first final on home soil at Queen’s Club.

Queen's: Scores | Order of play | Draws

"This week has been incredible," Raducanu said after her semifinal win. "I've really enjoyed playing here, and I think that really shows in my tennis and how I've been able to compete and stick out some tough moments. And yeah, it means everything making it to Sunday."

She’ll be joined in the championship match by Donna Vekic in what is set to be their first WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz meeting. Vekic reached her first tour-level final in two years with a comprehensive 6-1, 6-3 win in 66 minutes over another Brit, Katie Boulter, earlier in the day.

It’s the 15th WTA final of Vekic’s career and the third for Raducanu. It’s also Raducanu’s second final of the season after finishing runner-up to Sorana Cirstea in Cluj-Napoca in February.

Raducanu reaches final without dropping a set

It had been tough sledding of late for Raducanu before arriving in London. She hadn't won a match since March and was just 1-5 since reaching the Cluj-Napoca final. Illness, form struggles, and a coaching change -- or reunion, given Andrew Richardson's role in her 2021 US Open title -- all contributed to the roller-coaster stretch.

But everything has clicked this week. Raducanu has opened the Grass-Court Swing with four straight-sets wins en route to her first career WTA 500 final. The run includes her first two Top 20 victories of the season, over Cirstea and Jovic. Before beating Cirstea, her last Top 20 win came last May against Daria Kasatkina, with eight losses to Top 20 opponents in between.

Not even a brief scare against Rakhimova could slow her down. While leading in the second set, Raducanu took a hard fall that required taping on her left thigh and temporarily hampered her movement as her lead began to slip away. But she righted the ship just in time, breaking for 6-5 and serving out the match with a closing volley to seal a 6-3, 7-5 win in 1 hour and 54 minutes.

"Right now, it's a mix of adrenaline, but yeah, it was tough to take that fall," Raducanu said in her on-court interview. "I feel like I was in a pretty good spot in the match, and you know, on grass these things can happen, and I found it pretty tough to regroup, but I'm really proud of how I did that in the end."

Any lingering doubt about her fitness for a second match evaporated quickly. Raducanu delivered a clinical performance against Jovic, breaking early for a 3-1 lead in the opening set and dictating play from there.

After Jovic saved two break points, Raducanu ripped a forehand winner to reach deuce again, then clipped the line with a backhand to earn a third chance to break. She went back to the forehand for another winner on the ensuing point to capture a lead she would never relinquish.

She closed the first set with another break and repeated the pattern in the second, earning the decisive break for 3-1 before converting her first match point a few games later as Jovic's forehand found the net. The win sent Raducanu into her first final on home soil.

Given that the tournament hadn't been held for more than 50 years before returning last year, Raducanu will become the first British woman to contest the Queen's Club final since Winnie Shaw in 1970.

A stalwart on grass, Vekic goes from lucky loser to finalist

To avenge her compatriot's loss on home soil 56 years ago, Raducanu will have to get past Vekic -- no easy feat given the Croatian's grass-court pedigree. Six of her 15 WTA finals have come on the surface.

That's the good news. The bad news: she is 1-4 in her past five grass-court finals and owns a 4-10 record in tour-level finals, losing each of her last three.

But a reprieve may be coming. After losing to Anna Blinkova -- who later fell to Raducanu in the first round -- in the final round of qualifying, Vekic entered the main draw as a lucky loser and has since flipped her form entirely. She has won eight of nine sets across her past four matches, playing her best tennis since a 2024 stretch that included a Wimbledon semifinal and an Olympic silver medal.

Boulter had no answers for that level Saturday despite the home support. Vekic raced out to a 3-0 lead, broke again for 5-1 and closed the set with a love hold punctuated by a perfectly executed lob and a rocket of a forehand winner. She commited just two unforced errors in the opening set.

Boulter was more competitive in the second, but Vekic never wavered. She didn't face a break point all match and sealed the win with a backhand pass to complete her straight-sets victory.

"To be playing on this incredible court, it's such an honor," Vekic said in her on-court interview. "And the more time I get to spend on this court, the better it is for me. So I'm happy I have another chance tomorrow.

What's at stake

Both players enter Sunday's final with long title droughts. Raducanu is still in search of a second career title after her US Open breakthrough nearly five years ago. Meanwhile, Vekic is seeking her first winner's trophy since Monterrey in 2023.

To add even more fuel to the fire, a win would also significantly boost either player's chances of securing a coveted Wimbledon seed at the end of June.