MELBOURNE, Australia — In 2020, Iga Swiatek won her first Grand Slam title at the age of 19.
The following year, Emma Raducanu won her first Grand Slam title at the age of 18.
The two won major championships as teenagers, and have since taken different paths. Swiatek added four more Grand Slam titles to his record, spending more than 100 weeks as world No. 1 in the process. Raducanu has never reached a final on the WTA Tour, let alone another major.
Saturday's Australian Open third-round match was one of the most important matches of Raducanu's career since winning the 2021 US Open. Although she has climbed further in Grand Slams and reached the fourth round at Wimbledon last year, she has never played in a Grand Slam. His opponent is ranked higher than No. 7 in the world in the majors.
Raducanu's record against top 10 players is 2-7 and 0-3 against Swiatek, but he has won his last two matches against top 10 opponents at Eastbourne and Wimbledon. After a very chaotic 2024, he will be immediately tested against one of the best players in the world in 2025.
Swiatek and Raducanu, now 23 and 22 years old respectively, took very different trajectories to their quest for their first Grand Slam title. Swiatek's 2020 French Open breakthrough was underpinned by numerous Grand Slam main draw wins and a Wimbledon junior title, while Raducanu won the 2021 US Open qualifiers, marking a once-in-a-lifetime moment in tennis history. Ta.
Raducanu laughed Thursday as she talked about her breakthrough after defeating friend Amanda Anisimova 6-3, 7-5 to set up a matchup with the world No. 2.
“I know she's been playing since she was little, but compared to that, the six hours a week I was playing when I was 17 or 18 was probably a little ridiculous,” she told reporters. He spoke at a press conference.
“I don’t think it was on the same trajectory.”
In the race for the Junior Wimbledon title, Swiatek faced Raducanu in the quarterfinals. She won 6-0, 6-1.
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This contrast has continued since the first major titles for both men, with Swiatek winning Grand Slams on multiple surfaces (clay and hard courts), while Raducanu has been fooled by suddenly infinitely heightened expectations and unflattering. Either that or I had some bad luck with injuries. Her career has been one of consistent rebuilding, with Swiatek winning at least one major tournament in each of the past three seasons, winning 22 singles titles and winning all of her singles matches to qualify for the 2024 United Cup. won the title of “Most Valuable Player''.
In 2022, when Swiatek won both the French Open and the US Open, Raducanu was having his first decent season on the WTA Tour as a Grand Slam champion. When she was first introduced as a rookie player playing a full season, she performed well, making one semifinal and two quarterfinals. They weren't that good by the usual standards of Grand Slam champions. Raducanu lost 2,030 points with his first-round loss at the US Open, plummeting from 11th to 83rd in two weeks and finishing the year at 75th in the rankings.
It was a year of frequent changes in managers for Raducanu. She won the US Open with Andrew Richardson and replaced him with Torben Belz just two months after winning the title. By April 2022, Belz had left and was replaced by Dimitry Tursunov, with whom Anett Kontaveit had worked until she reached world number two.
Tursunov will not continue beyond a trial period of several months and told Tennis Majors there were “red flags” that could not be ignored. Sebastian Sachs was appointed in December 2022 and remained with the club until June of the following year, making Raducanu's fifth coach in less than two years. Richardson replaced Nigel Sears in July 2021, just two months before winning the US Open.
“Something doesn't necessarily work for me. I'm pretty savage in terms of focusing on myself first,” Raducanu said in Melbourne on Thursday. “I don't have the time to try to influence that. There's no hate. I just don't want to include that.”
Coaches are asked to create a PowerPoint presentation to explain their ideas. She has always had an amazing focus and strived for excellence. Even as a junior, she was looking for a coach to help her with certain shots. She's obsessed with the why of things and doesn't just jump because she's told to.
She told BBC Radio 4's Today program in October 2023: In some cases, they may not be able to answer my questions and that may be the reason for termination. ”
Belz was brought in to improve his forehand, but when that didn't happen, Raducanu saw little point in continuing.
Emma Radukanu and Dimitry Tursunov at the 2022 US Open (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
The next big moment in Raducanu's rebuild came in late 2023 when they hired Nick Cavadey as coach. The two had worked together when Raducanu was a junior and had discussed a potential partnership early in his senior career, but the timing didn't suit either side. He joined her team at the end of the 2023 season, which was dominated by injuries, another recurring theme in her career.
She missed most of the season after undergoing double wrist surgery and ankle surgery, appearing in only five games in total, ending the season in April. While Raducanu was in the early stages of rehabilitation, Swiatek was winning his third French Open, his second in two years, and his fourth Grand Slam title.
Cavadey remains in the position 13 months later, an eternity compared to previous coaching tenures. Mr. Raducanu focuses on providing evidence and data to support what he is saying, in keeping with his clear thinking and communication style. Cavadei's technical expertise also allows him to work on specific shots, particularly forehands and serves, which has been a key factor in Raducanu's coaching decisions to date.
His forehand is strong at this year's Australian Open, but the latter is still developing. With Swiatek getting used to life with Wim Visset, Raducanu will face an opponent with a more settled team on Saturday. Fissette has coached former world No. 1 Naomi Osaka, Kim Clijsters and Angelique Kerber to a total of six Grand Slam titles, leading Swiatek to take the sport by storm. He seems to be trying to regain his destructive but controlled aggression. The all-too-similar losing streak she suffered under former coach Tomasz Wiktorowski, where she was cornered by overhitting groundstrokes against peak opponents, is a long way off. It looks like.
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Šviatek has yet to suffer a loss to Raducanu. Raducanu has yet to win a set against her. The pair met for the third time in 2024, with the Briton rising from 285th at the start of the season to 58th by the end of the season. She faced Swiatek in the WTA 500 Stuttgart quarterfinals, where Swiatek won 7-6 (2), 6-3.
Raducanu entered the tournament as a wild card as he is also a brand ambassador for Porsche, which also sponsors the event. Later that year, Ms Raducanu was spotted riding a public bus in London and revealed herself driving a £100,000 Porsche Cayenne after rumors spread that the company had taken back the car she had given her. I posted a photo. In December, Raducanu told a small group of reporters that he would be cutting back on his sponsorship days.
He set that record again last year in the fourth round of Wimbledon, but it was overshadowed by his withdrawal from the mixed doubles match with Andy Murray, who is retiring, to protect his wrist before the fourth round.
Raducanu felt he had no other choice. Murray was eviscerated. His mother Judy called it “amazing” on social media. Raducanu faced a lot of criticism for doing what most players would do in the same situation, before answering when asked about Murray's absence from the US Open that tennis “doesn't feel any different.” She added that given the way tennis works, even if a player like Murray moves on, it will be “old news the next day.”
Even without that episode, Raducanu has faced the challenge of connecting with a wide range of people in the sports world. In Melbourne, she spoke more matter-of-factly about Murray's situation than before.
“Afterwards, I sent him a long message. In short, 'If I cause any trouble at Wimbledon, that's the last thing I want,'” she told a small group of reporters. told.
“He's someone I've grown up admiring and I don't want any bad blood or strong feelings to develop between us.”
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Recognizing the importance of an athlete's public image, Raducanu met with a group of British journalists in December for an interview and informal lunch, where he outlined some of his goals for 2025. “I think I can be one of the best athletes in tennis, and I think he can really help me with that,” said Raducanu, who is joined by Grand Slam champion and world No. 1 Maria Sharapova and Naomi Osaka.
At the time, Raducanu had just returned from several months out after spraining a ligament in his foot in early September. She had gone through a difficult period before that, choosing to qualify for the hard court swing before the U.S. Open and entering the U.S. Open unprepared.
At the pre-competition press conference, Raducanu said she was feeling great, but after her loss to Sofia Kenin, she burst into tears while working after the match. “I feel depressed and sad,” she said.
Raducanu arrived in Melbourne under similar circumstances. He arrived at the Australian Open without any match practice after experiencing back spasms while tying his shoelaces.
Her previous wins have come against No. 26 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova and former French Open semi-finalist Amanda Anisimova, both of which she came close to winning, but when she needed to, she came out strong. Ta. She has won the past eight tiebreaks, including two with Alexandrova. Her fine-tuned serve has been erratic, but she has relied on her ground game and worked on her physical issues to cover up her serve issues. Radukanu underwent treatment for her back when she was down 3-0 in the second set against Anisimova, but went on to win seven of nine games to win the match.
Emma Laducanu has impressed in Melbourne's first two matches. (Seetan/Getty Images)
Her defensive tennis was outstanding against Anisimova, running down the baseline and forcing more strokes and drawing errors from her increasingly erratic opponent.
“I was able to get to some balls that I might not have been able to do before,” Raducanu said after the game.
When asked about their different paths over the past few years, Swiatek gave a philosophical answer. “Everyone's story is different, and everyone is struggling with different things,” she said at a press conference Thursday.
While some expect Swiatek to be too strong, it feels like an important step for Raducanu to be in a position to play against the best players in the world.
“When you step on the court, the better you play, the better you win, that's all,” Swiatek said.
(Top photo: Robert Prange / Getty Images)
