Raducanu & Norrie claim Rome wins as Boulter beaten

Britain's Emma Raducanu and Cameron Norrie won their first-round matches at the Italian Open as Katie Boulter failed to progress in Rome.

Raducanu, making her first appearance at the tournament after a three-year absence, had to dig deep to win 7-5 6-7 (1-7) 6-3 against Australian Maya Joint.

Norrie booked his second-round place with a comfortable 6-3 6-2 win over Christopher O'Connell.

Meanwhile, 28-year-old Boulter lost 3-6 3-6 to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia.

Raducanu will face Russian second seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in the next round, while Norrie will be in action on Friday, 9 May against world number 11 Daniil Medvedev - a player the Brit has faced three times but never beaten.

After taking a tight first set, Raducanu was serving for the match at 5-4 in the second when a resurgent Joint fought back and was able to take the former US Open champion to a tie-break, which the 19-year-old breezed through 7-1.

Raducanu then had to regroup for the deciding set and raced into a 5-0 lead, only to be pegged back again by Joint who won the next three games. She finally closed out the set on serve after two hours and 44 minutes.

The 22-year-old Raducanu returned to action in April after taking a month-long break from competitive tennis. She made it through to the second round at the Madrid Open two weeks ago but fell to a straight-set defeat by Ukraine's Marta Kostyuk.

In the men's competition, British number three Norrie was defeated by Serbian Dusan Lajovic in the qualifying round on Tuesday, but he received a spot in the main draw as a lucky loser.

The 29-year-old dropped just five games against O'Connell in a 76-minute match and told Sky Sports he channelled his anger into overcoming the Australian following his disappointing performance against Lajovic.

"I was sharp, I didn't give him much and I played some physical tennis," said Norrie. "I was just really happy I turned that energy around."

For Boulter, after earning the first WTA clay-court win of her career last month in Madrid, she struggled to repeat the same form in Rome against Pavlyuchenkova, despite the former French Open finalist being on a four-match losing streak.