Emma Raducanu roars because the Brit fights by means of assault of double faults to achieve Australian Open second spherical

Emma Raducanu said it felt as though her serve ‘had a mind of its own’ as she moved into the second round of the Australian Open despite hitting 15 double faults.

It was rarely pretty and never comfortable but the British No2 was ultimately impressive in toughing out two tiebreak sets to beat 30-year-old No26 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova.

On Thursday she will play good friend and fellow former teenage star Amanda Anisimova – and it is not difficult to predict what Raducanu will be working on in the intervening period.

The 22-year-old was set upon by jumping ants before the tournament but here it was an attack of second-serve gremlins. Raducanu appeared to be debuting yet another tweak to her service action, this time an adjustment to her grip. The racket face was much more open, in theory allowing for more spin, but she never looked in control of the shot.

‘Honestly I’m not sure what I changed in my serve today!’ said Raducanu, with an element of deflection, when asked about the change. ‘I think it had a mind of its own.

‘I’ve had teething problems with it before and then been able to fix it for the next match. I’m looking forward to getting back on the (practice) court tomorrow and working on it.

‘It’s very important to not let it trickle into the rest of your game.’

Raducanu hit five double faults and five aces across her first two service games; her opponent may be from the Urals but it was Raducanu playing Russian roulette.

In the first set she won only 18 per cent of her second serve points – to concede such an advantage to a player of Alexandrova’s experience and quality and still come through in straight sets shows how well the rest of her game was functioning.

She returned superbly and held her own in the rallies against Alexandrova’s powerful, pancake-flat groundstrokes.

‘As more (double faults) kept coming it was not easy to refocus,’ admitted Raducanu. ‘But I knew even if I was down, I have great returns. It was good to be able to rely on other parts of my game.

‘I’m just very proud I didn’t let it affect me too much and let the match run away from me.’

The most impressive aspect of Raducanu’s performance was how she stepped up at the climax of each set. She has now won her last eight tiebreaks in a row and 23 out of 35 in her career – these stats are not typical of a world No60 and suggest her ceiling is far higher.

‘I was embracing the nerves,’ Raducanu told the BBC when asked about her tiebreak record. ‘I like those clutch situations and also the adrenaline. I love adrenaline in all aspects of my life – I love speed of course (she is a big F1 fan).

‘When those moments come around, I feel regret if I am passive or take things off the shots. Then afterwards if you lose the set, you are kicking yourself and thinking: “Why didn’t I go for it?” Growing up I always had good strength when it gets tight.’

Raducanu is quite right to take the positives but she must try to iron out any kinks in the serve before facing Anisimova, 23.

A likely reason for the grip change is an attempt to apply more ‘kick’, the spin that allows a server to control the flight of the ball and make it spit off the surface. Whenever she glanced at coach Nick Cavaday he frantically responded with the universal hand tennis signal for ‘kick’.

Raducanu has never been a natural kick-server but she did get a little more work on the ball as the match progressed and started to serve tighter to her opponent’s body, denying her the room to free up her arms. With a bit of help from Cavaday, she did a decent job of problem solving on the fly.

It was a scrappy if oddly compelling match but Raducanu survived and for now that is all that matters.

She joined first-round winners Jodie Burrage, Harriet Dart, Jack Draper and Jacob Fearnley, as Britain equalled their record for the number of players in the second round. Katie Boulter will try later today to be the record-breaking sixth Brit through.