Emma Raducanu and Katie Boulter get their budding doubles partnership off to a winning start at Queen’s in classy straight-sets victory

Emma Raducanu and Katie Boulter got their doubles partnership off to a pitch-perfect start on Monday afternoon as they cruised past Wu Fang-hsien and Jiang Xinyu in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4. 

The all-British team featuring the country’s two biggest names in tennis was destined to the most eye-catching match on the first day of the inaugural WTA 500 event in west London. 

But instead of organising the box-office draw on The Queen’s Club freshly named Andy Murray Arena, ‘Boultercanu’ were relegated to Court One, which can only hold 1,000 souls to the centre court’s near-8,000. 

Inside the ground, queues snaked around the lower-tier court an hour-long, and those hoping to view the match on television were disapppointed further when the BBC announced that they would be featuring one of the other British hopefuls, Sonay Kartal, do battle with Daria Kasatkina. 

But for those inside Court One, the air fizzed with promise, with the crowd clamouring for a glimpse of ‘Radders’ and her British No1 partner. 

As for the tennis itself? The spontaneous nature of the pairing meant there was a certain roughness to the early stages of the match. 

Raducanu and Boulter were the first to claim the early break, riding momentum from the stands, and the 28-year-old was the more solid presence in the opening set as her stronger experience in the format told. 

But more telling were the players’ moods, as Raducanu and Boulter exchanged high-fives and laughed through baseline miscommunication to build a 4-2 lead. 

But Wu and Jiang struck back in the eighth game of the tie, forcing the match back onto serve. Eager not to waste time, the Britons struck quickly for the immediate break-back, with Raducanu in particular showing how sumptuous her clean groundstrokes can look on grass. 

With the first set in the bag, Raducanu and Boulter, clad in complementary Nike kits and looking the platonic ideal of a doubles partnership, really got into the swing of things. 

Raducanu, under the watchful eyes of both Mark Petchey and Nick Cavaday, grew in confidence at the net, letting out a roar of delight as she popped stinging winners between an increasingly frustrated Wu and Jiang, mired in mid-court, and Boulter’s doubles competence across the baseline saw the Brits stop their opponents in their tracks and sprint away with the win. 

Both Boutler and Raducanu have hinted at the importance of getting time on grass under their belts ahead of Wimbledon at the end of month. 

With their new doubles pairing taking off nicely, they will look to do so in style too.