Emma Raducanu and Iga Swiatek’s Australian Open match reunites two teenage Grand Slam winners

MELBOURNE, Australia — In 2020, Iga Swiatek won her first Grand Slam title at 19.

The following year, Emma Raducanu won her first Grand Slam title at 18.

The pair of teenage major winners have followed divergent paths since then. Swiatek has added four more Grand Slam titles to her tally, spending over 100 weeks as world No. 1 in the process; Raducanu hasn’t reached the final of a single WTA Tour event, let aloneanother major.

Their Australian Open third-round match on Saturday is one of the most consequential of Raducanu’s career since winning the U.S. Open in 2021. She has gone deeper in a Grand Slam before, reaching the Wimbledon fourth round last year, but she has never played an opponent ranked higher than world No. 7 at a major.

Raducanu’s career record against top-10 players is 2-7, with an 0-3 head-to-head against Swiatek, but she has won her last two matches against top-10 opponents at Eastbourne and Wimbledon respectively. After a heavily disrupted 2024, 2025 brings an immediate test against one of the best players in the world.

Swiatek and Raducanu, now 23 and 22 respectively, took very different trajectories en route to their first Grand Slam titles. Swiatek’s breakout tournament at the 2020 French Open came on the back of numerous Grand Slam main draw match wins and a junior Wimbledon title, while Raducanu won the 2021 U.S. Open as a qualifier, a once-in-history tennis moment.

Raducanu laughed Thursday when talking about breakthroughs in the wake of beating friend Amanda Anisimova 6-3, 7-5 to set up the meeting with the world No. 2.

“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 or 18, playing six hours a week,” she said in a news conference.

“I don’t think it was the same trajectory.”

In that junior Wimbledon title run, Swiatek met Raducanu in the quarterfinals. She won 6-0, 6-1.

The contrast has persisted since their respective first major titles, with Swiatek winning Grand Slams on multiple surfaces (clay and hard courts) while Raducanu either flattered to deceive in the wake of suddenly and infinitely increased expectations or suffered continual misfortune with injuries. Her career has been one of consistent rebuilds, while Swiatek has won at least one major in each of the past three seasons, picking up 22 singles titles and the 2024 United Cup’s “most valuable player” title after winning all of her singles matches.