For the second major in a row, Iga Swiatek and Emma Raducanu will meet in the first week.<\/p>\n
No. 5 seed Iga Swiatek had to navigate a slightly trickier test than she is accustomed to in Grand Slam first rounds, coming from 3-1 down in the second set to open her Roland Garros title defense with a 6-3, 6-3 defeat of Rebecca Sramkova. Raducanu followed after overcoming Wang Xinyu 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 in a 2-hour, 44-minute thriller on Court 8.<\/p>\n
Roland Garros 2025:\u00a0Draws<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Scores<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0411<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n In the third round of the Australian Open in January, Swiatek routed Raducanu 6-0, 6-1 in 1 hour and 10 minutes. The former World No. 1 has yet to drop a set to Raducanu in four meetings. However, their closest meetings have both come on clay, in the Stuttgart quarterfinals in 2022 and 2024. On those occasions, Swiatek came through 6-4, 6-4 and 7-6(2), 6-3 respectively.<\/p>\n “I didn’t really think about [the Australian Open] match, honestly,” Swiatek said after defeating Sramkova. “I was thinking about our Stuttgart match, and I think we played another time on clay after — I’m not sure. I’m not good at that. But I don’t really take a lot from that except the experience and … knowing how she plays.<\/p>\n “But Melbourne and Roland Garros [are] totally different surfaces, different stories. I’ll prepare tactically as I should before a clay court match, and that’s it.”<\/p>\n Raducanu, meanwhile, will enter the match with a nothing-to-lose attitude.<\/p>\n “It’s a match for me where I can really test and challenge myself,” she said. “Especially on clay, it’s her preferred tournament, surface. She’s won it, like, four times. It’s a match where I can just … go for my shots, because I know if I just push the ball, I’m probably going to get eaten.”<\/p>\n Swiatek survives challenge from Sramkova<\/strong><\/p>\n Sramkova was also a repeat opponent from Melbourne for Swiatek. In the second round of the Australian Open, Swiatek had needed just an hour to win 6-0, 6-2. In the rematch, No. 42-ranked Sramkova brought a higher level to the court, holding her own in high-octane baseline rallies and striking 23 winners, just two fewer than Swiatek’s 25.<\/p>\n Blending power with touch on the drop shot and lob, Sramkova made the first half of both sets tightly contested — but Swiatek asserted her authority when it mattered. At 3-3 in the first set, the former World No. 1 upped her aggression levels to pressure Sramkova with a series of winners, converting her third break point with a sweet backhand down the line. From 3-1 down in the second set, Swiatek took back control with a rapid-fire run through 10 consecutive points, and ultimately five straight games.<\/p>\n The result extended four-time champion Swiatek’s winning streak at Roland Garros to 22, and her winning streak in WTA tournament opening matches to 60. Her last losses in both came to Maria Sakkari — in the 2021 Roland Garros quarterfinals and 2021 WTA Finals Guadalajara round-robin respectively.<\/p>\n Rivalry Rewind: The best of Iga Swiatek vs. Emma Raducanu<\/p>\n Raducanu takes control in home stretch<\/strong><\/p>\n Raducanu’s only previous meeting with Wang was also top quality. Back in 2021, two months after Raducanu’s shock first major crown at the US Open, she fell 6-1, 6-7(0), 7-5 to the Chinese player in the second round of Linz. That contest featured sustained shot-making excellence from both for 2 hours and 36 minutes, and the pair picked up where they left off in the rematch.<\/p>\n The Raducanu forehand was on song from the start, netting her two clean winners en route to an immediate break of Wang’s serve. That shot has been a focus of the World No. 41’s training of late, in order to bring it to the same level as the backhand that has historically been her favored wing.<\/p>\n “It’s just a good development of my game that has come in more recent times,” she said. “I enjoy looking for it. I enjoy seeing how far at the center I can run around and how many backhands I can take as forehands. I think just in terms of angle, I have a lot more options when I look for a forehand on that middle ball.<\/p>\n “I’m happy with the way it’s come across. It is developing into a weapon. … Growing up, my backhand was always my stronger shot. I guess the main goal and main objective is to have the best of both worlds.”<\/p>\n Wang Xinyu triumphs over top seed Raducanu in 3-set thriller for first Top 20 win: Linz Highlights<\/p>\n For most of the first set, the Briton kept her nose in front, but Wang remained hot on her heels, pegging her back from 5-3 to 5-5. However, Raducanu maintained her intensity on return to sweep through the final two games, despite needing to take a medical time-out leading 6-5.<\/p>\n “I think I’m actually really proud of today’s match, more so than I think a lot of the matches that I played recently or in general, because I woke up and I felt really sick, to be honest,” Raducanu told the press afterward. “I felt bad from the morning. I was just trying and fighting through that. It was really difficult. In the first set, I just felt it straightaway and it didn’t really go away throughout the whole match. To have come through that and overcome how I was feeling, I’m really happy with … it would have been easy to let it drag me down.”<\/p>\n A pair of scorching backhands down the line enabled Wang to break for 3-1 in the second set, and she swiftly moved out to 5-1 as Raducanu’s form — and forehand — took a downturn. But Raducanu responded to the heavy deficit with some of her most free-flowing ball-striking of the match — and a three-game run to get back on serve.<\/p>\n Raducanu was unable to take four game points to level at 5-5, but she carried that momentum into the decider. She pummeled a forehand return for an immediate break, and delighted the crowd with a fine half-volley pickup en route to a 3-0 double-break lead. Down 5-2, Wang prevented Raducanu from serving out the win with some bold play of her own, but the gulf was too much to make up: facing her third match point, the 23-year-old double faulted to send Raducanu through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the second major in a row, Iga Swiatek and Emma Raducanu will meet in the first week.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,661,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-134212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-text","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114576214580772570","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}