Emma Raducanu already has bad Iga Swiatek omens as Brit shuts down comparisons | Tennis | Sport

Emma Raducanu has shut down comparisons between herself and Iga Swiatek ahead of her first meeting with the world No 1 in Stuttgart. While the pair have never met on the pro tour, Swiatek has the edge over the Brit already after a dominant win at junior Wimbledon four years ago but Raducanu minimised the significance of her one-sided defeat.

Raducanu will face her toughest opponent yet in world No 1 Swiatek when the pair clash in the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix quarter-finals. It’s the first first meeting between the pair on the pro tour but they have actually faced off once before at junior Wimbledon back in 2018, also in the quarters, where the 20-year-old overwhelmed Raducanu with a 6-0 6-1 defeat.

While it gives her an advantage going into their match on Friday, the Brit has admitted she’s putting that encounter to the back of her mind, laughing as she said: “I erased it from my memory.” The world No 12 has been compared to her upcoming opponent, with both winning their first titles at Grand Slam level as teenagers who were not expected to win the title.

Swiatek was 19 and ranked outside the world’s top 50 when she won the French Open in 2020, while Raducanu became the first qualifier in history to win a Grand Slam title when she lifted the US Open trophy as an 18-year-old and the world No 150 last September. And the Bromley teenager has shut down comparisons between the two, explaining that their journeys had been completely different.

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“Iga had been playing tennis full time for years before. She was on the ITF Tour, she was on the WTA Tour,” she explained. “I hadn’t played for 18 months, was sitting for my exams, and didn’t really play that many tournaments or trained very much. I was training like three times a week for 10 hours a week last year.”

Swiatek has gone on to reach the top of the rankings and win four WTA 1000 titles since becoming a Grand Slam champion, while Raducanu has reached No 12 in the world and her best showing have been quarter-finals both in Stuttgart and last year in Transylvania. Still only part-way through her first full season on the pro tour, the eighth seed in Stuttgart added: “So right now it’s about building robustness for sure, playing matches week in and week out.”

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