During her encouraging journey to the second week of the Italian Open, Emma Raducanu showcased her quality and fighting spirit across three wins against solid top 100 opponents.

The best players in the world, however, present a completely different physical and mental challenge. This was reinforced on a windy Monday afternoon as Raducanu was outclassed by a supreme performance from the fourth seed Coco Gauff. Fresh off her run to the final of the Madrid Open, Gauff played another brilliant match in a contest between two former US Open champions to reach the quarter-finals in Rome with an emphatic 6-1, 6-2 win.

Related: Jannik Sinner returns with a win to leave rocking Rome celebrating again

“I found it really hard today,” said Raducanu. “I think the conditions were so different. It was really windy and so high bouncing, and I just found like every ball was out of my strike zone, so I couldn’t really get a good hit. And then it just kept getting higher and higher. And it was really hard. And Coco played a great match too, and found, like, great shape, great width, great depth. I felt outplayed today, but it was good to kind of see where I’m at in these conditions.”

After starting the season with some of the best tennis of her entire career at the United Cup in January, Gauff’s first few months of the year were disappointing, with numerous early losses and defeats by players ranked outside the top 50. However, the 21-year-old’s fortunes have rapidly turned on the red clay, which generally provides her with more time to set up her forehand and impose its heavy topspin while further amplifying her peerless defensive skills.

So far in her career, Gauff’s biggest titles have come exclusively on hard courts, but she is equally dangerous on clay. As she carefully pushed Raducanu back and moved her around the court, Gauff’s forehand overwhelmed Raducanu, continually spinning the ball high out of the Briton’s strike zone. Alongside her superior weight of shot and immaculate depth, Gauff’s defence made it so difficult to hit through her.

“You feel like there’s no space on the court,” said Raducanu. “You don’t really know where to hit, especially when she’s playing like that. I think both sides held up really well. I think her serve held up really well. So, yeah, it was a good testament to her. She’s two [No 2 in the live rankings] in the world for a reason, and I definitely felt that. And so that’s it.”

This is not the first time that Raducanu’s game has looked underpowered against the elite. Although the 22-year-old times the ball sweetly and is a solid athlete, she was outmatched in both departments by Gauff, as was the case during her loss to Iga Swiatek in Australia. The challenge for Raducanu is to continue adding layers to her game so that she can more effectively disrupt a player of Gauff’s calibre. She also has to learn how to perform better in windy conditions, which has been a consistent issue.

Afterwards, Raducanu took an optimistic view on the defeat, stressing the importance of learning from it. “For me to see the ball today that I was receiving was really valuable. I haven’t really played these top opponents very often, because I haven’t been in the tournament for long enough, so for me to be kind of playing them now is good exposure,” she said.

Despite its emphatic ending, this still represents an excellent week for Raducanu and by far her best result on outdoor red clay. She played quality tennis, blending her attacking instincts with greater variety and she now sits at No 42 in the live rankings, two places behind the British No 1 Katie Boulter. Raducanu should head into the French Open full of confidence.

“I take good confidence [from this],” she said. “I think for the first three rounds, I played really good tennis, and I came through some really tough opponents as well, last-minute changes, recovering after a set down and two three-set wins, which was big for me. So I’m happy about that.”

Later on Monday, the men’s top seed Jannik Sinner defeated the Dutch lucky loser Jesper de Jong 6-4, 6-2 to reach the fourth round of the Italian Open as he continued his return from a three-month anti-doping suspension. Sinner will next face the 17th seed Francisco Cerundolo, by far the biggest test of his comeback.

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