Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka got her 2026 season off to a winning start for Japan in the United Cup, after Great Britain’s Emma Raducanu pulled out of their singles clash with a fitness issue.<\/p>\n
But despite Osaka’s win, GB took the match 2-1 with a deciding mixed doubles victory.<\/p>\n
Osaka was too strong for GB reserve and 276th-ranked Katie Swan, winning 7-6 (7\/4), 6-1 as Raducanu watched from the sidelines.<\/p>\n
“I’m proud of how I fought,” Osaka said. “I’d never played here, it was tough.”<\/p>\n
GB captain Tim Henman said Raducanu, the 2021 US Open champion, could appear later in the event.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think she’s necessarily out of this tournament just yet. So we’re keeping our fingers crossed,” said Henman.<\/p>\n
Billy Harris, standing in for the injured Jack Draper, began with a 7-6 (7\/4), 6-3 defeat of Shintaro Mochizuki.<\/p>\n
“It’s great to get the first win, even if there were some shaky bits. I closed it out well at the end,” said Harris.<\/p>\n
Great Britain sealed the match when Neal Skupski and Olivia Nicholls defeated Yasutaka Uchiyama and Nao Hibino 7-5, 4-6, 10-7.<\/p>\n
In Sydney, Alexander Zverev clinched victory for Germany against The Netherlands as the world number three demolished Tallon Griekspoor 7-5, 6-0.<\/p>\n
Eva Lys beat Suzan Lamens 6-2, 6-2 and Germany also took the doubles for a 3-0 sweep.<\/p>\n
Playing his first match of 2026, Zverev dropped just seven points in a commanding second set.<\/p>\n
“The first set, it was tough to get rhythm,”said Zverev. “Once I got the chances, I did well and I’m very happy with the win.”<\/p>\n
The 18-nation mixed-team event in Perth and Sydney is a warm-up for the Australian Open which begins on January 18.<\/p>\n
str\/dh<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka got her 2026 season off to a winning start for Japan in the United Cup, after Great Britain’s Emma Raducanu pulled out of their singles clash with a fitness issue. But despite Osaka’s win, GB took the match 2-1 with a deciding mixed doubles victory. Osaka was too strong […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23038"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23044,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23038\/revisions\/23044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}