Emma Raducanu vowed to keep her free-swinging and carefree approach to tennis after pulling off one of the great sporting feats with victory at the US Open.

Winning grand slam titles is supposed to be hard – just ask Andy Murray – but his 18-year-old compatriot did not so much clear all the usual hurdles as sidestep them altogether, going home with the trophy in just her second major tournament.

That was an unprecedented feat, as was the fact she won 10 matches at the tournament after coming through qualifying, all of them in straight sets.

The 19-year-old admitted defeat stung, saying: “I think this loss, I’m going to carry it for a very long time. I think it will motivate me to do better in training, better for the next opportunity I get.

“But I’m very happy with myself, with the way I competed, and the play I played, the way I acted on court the past two weeks. I’ve improved a lot not only tennis wise but emotionally and mentally.

“Emma is a very good player. She’s been playing incredibly these last few months with a lot of confidence. I unfortunately today did one too many mistakes. Hopefully we’ll have many more tournaments together and many more finals.”