Emma Raducanu looking to defy history in Iga Swiatek clash

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Emma Raducanu will look to take the battle to Iga Swiatek when they clash in the third round of the Australian Open on Saturday.

It will be a fourth tour-level meeting between the two grand slam champions, with Raducanu yet to win a set.

But she has pushed Swiatek in two matches on clay in Stuttgart, in 2022 and last year, while the Pole was a comfortable winner in Indian Wells in 2023.

“We’ve played twice before on clay in Stuttgart,” said Raducanu. “The conditions there are very quick as well so those were two good matches and for me I think it’s about just expressing myself on the court and swinging.

“She’s a really top opponent, disciplined, so I’m going to have to play good tennis, but I take a lot of confidence from my last two rounds.”

Raducanu has defeated two strong players to make the last 32 in Melbourne for the first time, seeing off 26th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in round one and then former French Open semi-finalist Amanda Anisimova on Thursday.

There was concern when the 22-year-old took a medical time-out early in the second set for more treatment to her back, with a back spasm affecting her preparation for the tournament.

But Raducanu is hopeful it is nothing serious and she will try to put it to the back of her mind against Swiatek.

“Mentally pushing past anything, I’m pretty good at,” she said. “That’s not necessarily the biggest challenge, I think the biggest challenge is probably just when you’re on the court feeling something physically and just the limitations that brings.

“I was really proud with how I overcame the situation and I’ve given myself another chance and time to recover and turn it around.”

Raducanu’s first match against Swiatek came back in 2018 in the quarter-finals of the Wimbledon girls’ singles.

Raducanu was 15 while Swiatek, then 17, had already begun to make inroads on the women’s tour, and the British hopeful won only a single game.

Swiatek has not looked back since, winning five grand slam titles and spending 125 weeks at world number one, but Raducanu insists there is no jealousy.

“Of course I’ve seen her win a lot, but I also know that we’ve had very different paths,” said the 22-year-old.

“I know that she was playing since a very young age, and my hours in comparison were probably a bit comical when I was 17, 18, playing six hours a week. I don’t think it was the same trajectory.

“I think now I’m working on building those foundations, and everyone does things at their own pace.”

Swiatek also won her maiden grand slam title as a teenager, at the French Open in 2020, and she can empathise with the pressure of expectation that followed Raducanu’s US Open victory.

“For sure it’s hard,” said the second seed, who has been untroubled so far in Melbourne.

“Sometimes when I lose some matches, I realise that people just expect me to win because I won so much earlier that they got used to it.

“But no, this is constant work and taking care of many things also off the court and having good people around you, managing your whole life basically so you can play good and consistently. Everybody’s story is different, and everybody struggles with different stuff, but it doesn’t matter.

“When we’re going to be out there on the court, whoever is going to play better will win, and that’s it. I’ll just focus on tennis.

“For sure we have different stories, but before the match, I’m not going to really think about that. I’ll just prepare based on how she plays now and that’s it. It’s going to be a tough one. Emma can play great tennis. We all know that.”

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