Australian Open: Iga Swiatek routs Emma Raducanu in straight sets

Everything came so easily for Iga Swiatek during a 6-1, 6-0 victory over Emma Raducanu at the Australian Open on Saturday in the only women’s third-round match between two past Grand Slam champions.

If you thought that meant it would be close, you’d have been rather wrong – this was how she described it: “I felt like the ball,” Swiatek said, “is listening to me.”

Asked to explain that sensation, Swiatek put her two index fingers a few inches apart and said, “It’s just being able to aim for this kind of space.” Then she spread her palms more than a foot apart to show that’s the margin for error on other days.

The difference, she said, comes down to “being more precise and actually knowing where the ball is going to go, seeing the effects that you want it to”.

When the five-time major champion and former longtime No 1-ranked woman – now No 2, behind Aryna Sabalenka – is at the height of her powers, as she sure has seemed to be in Week 1 at Melbourne Park, it is hard for anyone to slow Swiatek down.

The heavy-spinning, high-bouncing forehands. The squeaky-sneaker scrambling to get to every shot. The terrific returning. And so on.

Against Raducanu, who won the 2021 US Open as a teenage qualifier, Swiatek played at a level she called “perfect”.

Indeed, Swiatek mounted a 24-9 edge in winners, made only 12 unforced errors – roughly half of Raducanu’s 22 – and claimed 59 points to 29. That caused one spectator to yell out, “No mercy!” in the second set as Swiatek was reeling off the last 11 games after the match was tied at 1-all early with not a cloud in the sky and the temperature approaching 80 degrees Fahrenheit (above 25 Celsius).

“I think it was a little bit of her playing well, and me not playing so well,” Raducanu said. “That combination is probably not good.”

Swiatek, who agreed to accept a one-month suspension in a doping case late last year, owns four trophies from the French Open and one from the US Open. But she’s never been beyond the semifinals in Australia; she lost in that round to Danielle Collins in 2022. A year ago, Swiatek was upset in the third round by teenager Linda Noskova.

Swiatek dedicated Saturday’s win to her grandfather, and her razorlike focus is most evident in that she has ceded only 10 games in total through three matches with new coach Wim Fissette sitting courtside.

Next up will be 128th-ranked Eva Lys of Germany, who lost in qualifying but was given a spot in the main draw when someone withdrew about 10 minutes before her first-round match.

Lys defeated Jaqueline Cristian 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 and is the first “lucky loser” to get to the Australian Open’s fourth round since the tournament moved to Melbourne Park in 1988.

Others who now will get a chance to play for a quarterfinal berth after victories on Saturday included No 6 Elena Rybakina, No 8 Emma Navarro and No 9 Daria Kasatkina. Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion, beat No 32 Dayana Yastremska 6-3, 6-4, Navarro eliminated three-time major finalist Ons Jabeur 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, and Kasatkina got past No 24 Yulia Putintseva 7-5, 6-1. Unseeded Veronika Kudermetova beat No 15 Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-4, 6-2.

No 4 Jasmine Paolini, who is a two-time Slam finalist, was eliminated by No 28 Elina Svitolina 2-6, 6-4, 6-0.

Navarro, who reached her first major semifinal at Flushing Meadows in September, has won all three of her matches in Melbourne this year in three sets. That means she has been involved in 30 tour-level three-setters since the start of last season, the most of any female player.

“I love three sets. I love tennis so much, I can’t resist,” joked Navarro, who grew up in South Carolina and won an NCAA singles title at the University of Virginia. “I just wanted to stick in there and keep believing in myself.”

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