Britain’s Emma Raducanu continued her Wimbledon preparations by cruising into the quarter-finals of the Nottingham Open with a straight-set win over Ukraine’s Daria Snigur.
Raducanu – playing only her second match since April after deciding to skip the French Open to focus on her fitness – made light work of the world number 127 to win 6-2 6-2.
She will face compatriot Fran Jones or American Ashlyn Krueger in the last eight.
In the men’s Challenger event, Cameron Norrie suffered a shock 1-6 6-4 6-4 loss to world number 773 Jack Pinnington Jones.
Raducanu, 21, made a shaky start to the second-round match as her 22-year-old opponent broke her serve in the opening game.
Both players then held serve before former US Open champion Raducanu reeled off six games in a row – including a double break – to win the first set.
After ceding the first game, Raducanu’s serve was particularly impressive. She sent down 11 aces thanks to a new-look action she has adopted since reuniting with childhood coach Nick Cavaday.
On her serve, Raducanu said: “I’ve been working on every part of my game but the serve is very important.
“I don’t look at the speed gun but when I raise my game it’s nice to get a couple of free points.
“At the start of the year, I didn’t manage to get that. When playing the top opponents like Iga [Swiatek] or Aryna [Sabalenka] then you need a first serve.”
Snigur also found it difficult to cope with the power Raducanu produced from her groundstrokes, most notably her forehand.
Raducanu had been unhappy with a number of line calls during her first-round win over Japan’s Ena Shibahara, and she was seen questioning umpire Thomas Sweeney during the win over Snigur.
But the world number 209 put her frustration aside to make it back-to-back wins for the third time this year as she builds up to Wimbledon, which starts on 1 July.