Emma Raducanu vs Suzan Lamens LIVE: Raducanu wins in straight sets at the Madrid Open

Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of Emma Raducanu’s clash with Suzan Lamens in the Madrid Open.

Raducanu kicks off her clay-court campaign in the Spanish capital after missing the clay event in Rouen, hoping to continue in fine stead after a superb run at the Miami Open.

She takes on Dutch player Lamens, who beat Raducanu’s GB teammate Katie Boulter in their Billie Jean King Cup singles’ encounter earlier in April.

Follow for all the build-up and live match updates.

Emma Raducanu and Suzan Lamens are the third match scheduled on Arantxa Sanchez Stadium, after Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard vs Mariano Navone from 11am, and Belinda Bencic against a qualifier, which will take place not before 1pm local time.

Raducanu and Lamens will likely take to the court around 2.30pm local time, 1.30pm BST, but possibly later if the previous matches significantly overrun.

Viewers in the UK can watch the Madrid Open on Sky Sports. If you’re not a Sky customer, you can grab a NOWTV Day Pass here to watch without a subscription.

The tournament runs from from April 22 to May 4 and is a combined WTA and ATP event.

Whoever wins will play Ukraine’s world No. 29 Marta Kostyuk, who has a first-round bye, in the second round, with world No. 1 and two-time Madrid champion Aryna Sabalenka a potential quarter-final opponent.

Katie Boulter won her first-round match against Olympic mixed doubles champion Katerina Siniakova and will play world No. 7 Jasmine Paolini in the next round.

In the men’s draw, Jack Draper is seeded fifth and will play either Tallon Griekspoor or a qualifier in his opening match, with Italy’s Matteo Berrettini a possible third-round opponent and Novak Djokovic looming in the quarter-finals.

Cameron Norrie, who has dropped down to British No. 3 with Jacob Fearnley’s rise up the rankings, opens against home favourite Martin Landaluce and will aim to set up a second-round tie with Czech talent Jiri Lehecka, who Norrie recently beat in Indian Wells. New Monte Carlo champion Carlos Alcaraz could await in the third round for the winner.

Emma Raducanu is to continue working with coach and commentator Mark Petchey on an “informal” basis, rather than hunting for a permanent coach.

The British No. 2 had Petchey in her box at the Miami Open last month, alongside friend and mentor Jane O’Donoghue, with the more relaxed coaching set-up seeming to pay off as Raducanu reached her first-ever WTA 1000 quarter-final in Florida.

She has not played since losing to eventual finalist Jessica Pegula in the last eight, opting for a training block to “look after her body” rather than joining Great Britain’s Billie Jean King Cup team in the Netherlands earlier this month.

After Mariano Navone battled past Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in straight sets to get things going at the Arantxa Sanchez Stadium, Belinda Bencic has got off to an absolute flyer against Zeynep Sonmez.

She’s 4-0 up in the first set and is threatening to make extremely quick work of her opponent.

With Emma Raducanu next up on the order of play, it might be a good idea to start thinking about warm-ups.

Emma Raducanu believes her “less is more” approach will pay off as she returns to action at the Madrid Open following a mid-season break.

Raducanu reached the quarter-finals of the Miami Open last month in her best tournament run since winning the US Open in 2021.

The 22-year-old required medical attention during her defeat to Jessica Pegula, and subsequently pulled out of the Great Britain squad for the Billie Jean King Cup qualifiers.

But Raducanu is back for the WTA 1000 event in the Spanish capital, where she will continue her “informal” coaching arrangement with Mark Petchey, and she believes the “reset” will have helped.

Suzan Lamens was on the losing side of April’s dramatic Billie Jean King Cup clash with Emma Raducanu’s Great Britain, despite picking up a win for her nation.

Lamens beat British No.1 Katie Boulter in straight sets to send the tie into a deciding doubles match in The Hague.

But with Boulter brought back alongside Jodie Burrage by captain Anne Keothavong in a change to her original pairing, Great Britain dominated Lamens and Demi Schuurs to take a spot in September’s eight-team finals.

Britain’s victory was all the more impressive having played without Emma Raducanu, who chose to withdraw to focus on her training ahead of the clay-court swing.

Emma Raducanu broke new ground at the Miami Open, and she did so thanks to the help of a couple of old faces in the box.

One of these was Mark Petchey, a former coach of Andy Murray and now a well-known commentator and broadcaster on the Tennis Channel.

Currently detailed as an “informal”, short-term solution to Raducanu’s turbulent coaching setup, Petchey keeps his place in the box for the Madrid Open after helping guide Raducanu to her best run since her US Open triumph of 2021.

Jamie Braidwood delves deeper into Petchey’s presence following success in Miami:

British No.1 Katie Boulter believes she does not feel any pressure at the Madrid Open as Emma Raducanu and Sonay Kartal climb the world rankings.

‘I'm very comfortable in the seat that I am and I know that every single person has a different journey,” the 28-year-old told the BBC.

“My journey is not going to be compared to anyone else's – I'm proud of that.”