As Emma Raducanu goes about the tricky task of continuing to learn her craft while living up to the expectations created by her meteoric rise from A-level student to US Open champion, she could have no better role model than Iga Swiatek.
Few can appreciate the situation in which Raducanu finds herself better than Swiatek, who likewise won a grand slam title as a teenager without dropping a set when she romped to the title at Roland Garros in 2020. The accomplished manner in which the 20-year-old Pole has since navigated her rise to world No 1 – a position she acquired by default when Ashleigh Barty announced her surprise retirement, but which she has quickly made her own – offers an obvious roadmap for Raducanu to follow as she seeks to establish herself among the game’s elite.
In the last eight of the Stuttgart Open, where she was beaten 6-4, 6-4 by Swiatek in a competitive and entertaining match, Raducanu had the chance to observe her rival’s work at close quarters. She will surely be encouraged by how well her game held up in her first meeting with a top-10 player. For a clay-court novice playing just her fifth professional match on the surface – against a former French Open champion riding a 20-match unbeaten streak – Raducanu emerged with immense credit, remaining competitive from start to finish and eventually emerging from the contest with more games than Swiatek’s previous four opponents combined.
While the British 19-year-old was unable to prevent Swiatek from moving a step closer to a fourth successive title, following Swiatek’s victories in Doha, Indian Wells and Miami, she did not allow her head to drop after losing her opening service game. That setback was to cost Raducanu the opener, but when history repeated itself at the start of the second set, she capitalised on some rare errors from the Pole to secure an immediate love break. And although Swiatek immediately reclaimed the advantage, outmaneuvering her rival to win a lung-busting baseline exchange on her second break point, Raducanu kept fighting and held break points in both the eighth and tenth games.
By the end, Swiatek was sufficiently rattled to cast a disdainful glance at chair umpire Timo Janzen following an overrule, and that is more change than most have had out of the Pole of late.
Yet for all Raducanu’s ability to live with the world No 1 from the baseline, and despite the frequent excellence of her first serve, the outcome was largely shaped by the superior quality of Swiatek’s second delivery. While the Pole’s vastly improved second serve kicked up viciously, nullifying Raducanu’s trademark ability to take the ball on the rise, Raducanu’s second ball had a habit of sitting up invitingly, allowing Swiatek to step in and make hay. It made for some sobering statistics, with Raducanu winning less than 43% of her second serve points to Swiatek’s 70%, and conceding all but one of the four break points she faced.
Raducanu, who took a medical timeout at 2-1 for what looked like a lower back problem, will also have noted her opponent’s relentless strength and physicality, another area in which – for all the undoubted brilliance of her movement – the teenager will look to improve after her various injury problems this season.
“When I was playing really fast and really aggressively, I felt like she could really give it back,” said Swiatek, who will face Liudmila Samsonova in the last four after the 31st-ranked Russian came through 7-5, 6-3 against Laura Siegemund of Germany.
“Even though this surface is pretty tricky and it’s hard to play defence, she did that pretty well sometimes, so I needed to spread her as far as possible. That was my plan, I wanted to be aggressive, but not too much because I felt also like I was playing sometimes too fast, and I missed some balls. So I wanted really to be solid and patient and look for the right ball to approach, and I think I did that pretty well.”
In the first of Friday’s quarter-finals, Paula Badosa survived a second marathon in two days, following her gruelling three-set win over Elena Rybakina in the previous round, to see off seventh seed Ons Jabeur 7-6 (11-9), 1-6, 6-3.
Jabeur twice served for the opening set and held set points in the tiebreak, but her inability to get over the line proved costly as Badosa shrugged off an imperious second-set display from the Tunisian to see out the decider.
The Spaniard, who will face Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-finals after the Belarusian third seed ended Anett Kontaveit’s 22-match indoor unbeaten streak 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, will now rise to a career-high ranking of No 2.
“The first set, I think it was a very high level from both sides. Either one of us could win it, and I’m very pleased that I could win it,” said Badosa, the second seed. “I was really, really tired and my energy went down.
“She played very well, as well. I was feeling pain everywhere but, as I always say, I’m a fighter and that’s what I want to be remembered for, so I’m really happy that I fought until the last moment.”