Emma Raducanu tumbles down world rankings with new British No.1 crowned
Emma Raducanu has tumbled down the tennis rankings after her third-round exit at Wimbledon - and has also lost her place as British No 1 in the process.
Raducanu earned plaudits during her run at SW19 this year as she impressed in wins over Mingge Xu and Marketa Vondrouseva, but suffered a tough 7-6, 6-4 defeat to world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka.
The former US Open winner has now dropped down the rankings as a result, moving from No 40 to 45. That means she has not only conceded her British No 1 crown, but she is now only good enough for a place in the top three.
Currently, Katie Boulter - who is World No 41 - and Sonay Kartal (No 44) are both ahead of her in the world rankings. Boulter stays above Raducanu despite exiting Wimbledon at an earlier stage - impressing with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 first round win over Paula Badosa before losing to Solana Sierra.
Kartal, meanwhile, was the most successful out of the three as she reached the round of 16 after wins over Jelena Ostapenka, Viktoriya Tomova and Diane Parry before losing to Anastasia Pavlyuchenko.
Raducanu admitted her defeat to Sabalenka - who won both the Australian Open and US Open last year - was "hard to take" after fighting hard and going toe-to-toe with the world No 1.
She held a set point in the opening set and had a break point at 5-1 up in the second set - but was powerless to stop Sabalenka battling back.
'It's hard to take a loss like that," she said during a tearful interview. "At the same time, I'm playing Aryna, who is a great champion. I have to be proud of my effort.
"It does give me confidence because I think the problem before was that I felt like I was gulfs away from the very top."
Sabalenka was complimentary about Raducanu after their closely-fought clash, tipping her to return to the top level "soon".
'She's fighting," Sabalenka said. "She's playing much better. She's more consistent. I can see that mentally she's healthy. I think that's really important. I'm pretty sure she's getting there."
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