Emma Raducanu won her first match in three months in convincing fashion.
The British No. 1, playing for the first time on home soil this year, defeated Queen’s debutant Anna Blinkova 6-0 despite having to contend with rain delays.
Raducanu stormed into an early 3-0 lead in the first set with her two holds of serve to love, only for heavy rain to hit Queen’s for the second day in a row.
Play resumed 30 minutes later and Raducanu picked up where she left off, breaking to love before rounding off a dominant first set by bagelling her Russian opponent.
World No. 105 Blinkova could not make enough first serves to stay competitive and the second set continued in the same vein as the first. Raducanu held and broke to claim an eighth game in a row.
Blinkova finally got on the scoreboard but normal service resumed shortly after, with Raducanu breaking again by reeling off two fabulous winners to challenge the Blinkova serve.
And the cordial British crowd gave Blinkova her biggest cheer of the day when she threatened to break Raducanu by slicing a stunning forehand across court, before backing that up with a break to inject some jeopardy into the match for the first time at 3-2 in the second.
Out of nowhere, she held to love and tied.
But Raducanu roared back, rattling off a quick game win of her own, then securing a morale-boosting victory on a third match point.