Emma Raducanu vs Iga Swiatek: Australian Open third round analysis
Return quality and backhand performances a world apart as Swiatek thrashed Raducanu
Iga Swiatek took so much time to begin her third round match against Emma Raducanu that umpire Marija Cicak gave her a time violation even before the first ball was struck.
Then the Polish star wasted no time in crushing the 2021 US Open champion 6-1, 6-0 in 1h10min.
📸 cover source: Australian Open
Swiatek delivered an elite performance to race away with a ruthless win. She was excellent on return, relentless in rallies and made very few errors. Gaining control of most points with her first shot, Swiatek took Raducanu’s forehand out of the match and made it a very uneven backhand battle.
Life was not easy for Raducanu on the other side of the net. Forced to fight for every single point, she was unable to keep up with Swiatek’s intensity, got pushed back and lost all self-belief and confidence as the match progressed.
A look at the single game won by Raducanu is great to get a perspective on the uphill challenge the Brit faced.
To grab a hold in her opening serve game, Raducanu needed to scrap through these 3 long rallies (lasting 11, 11 and 17 shots).
📺 source: Eurosport / Max
She also had to save 2 break points in that game and benefitted from a couple of rare Swiatek’s errors on aggressive “return+1s”.
Even though Swiatek missed those 2 shots, a crucial factor is evident right there. From start to finish, the depth and quality of Swiatek’s returns put her in charge and set up a number of possible follow-up winning strikes.
If Raducanu was intent on hitting her “serve+1s” on the baseline, too many times she was forced to half-volley from tough positions. The resulting short balls sat up nicely for Swiatek to step inside the court and convert them into “return+1” winners.
On a few other occasions, all Swiatek needed was to strike a big return.
Swiatek’s superb ability to generate early-rally offense on return was the polar opposite of Raducanu’s massive struggles to put any pressure on Swiatek’s serve, as the breakdown of points won on each player’s serve presented below so convincingly demonstrates.
Swiatek managed to win a combined 16 return points on 2-shot and 4-shot rallies (red and orange arrows in top panel, respectively). Remarkably, the equivalent production for Raducanu was a single point won (blue arrow in bottom panel).
** 2-shot rallies are points won by the returner featuring the return as the last valid shot. Likewise, 4-shot rallies are points won by the returner featuring the “return+1” as the last valid shot.
For Raducanu, the most alarming stat of the day was probably her total inability to win 2nd serve return points (apart from Swiatek’s 3 double faults).
The Brit finished 0-for-8 with 3 missed returns when Swiatek delivered a valid 2nd serve — 8 in total, all to Raducanu’s backhand.
Swiatek made Raducanu’s backhand her sole target for 2nd serves but also her main target for 1st serves.
In both sets, Swiatek made the same 1st serve distribution: 3 of 12 (25%) delivered to the forehand and 9 of 12 (75%) to the backhand.
The Polish was certainly vindicated by her choices, winning a staggering 16 of 18 (89%) 1st serves sent to Raducanu’s backhand side.
Swiatek’s 1st serve points won
to forehand: 4-for-6 (67%)
to backhand: 16-for-18 (89%)
As Raducanu struggled on return, her replies were on average 15 Km/H slower than Swiatek’s.
Several of those returns lacked proper depth and were immediately punished by Swiatek, very active in asserting superiority through attacking “serve+1s” in similar style to her “return+1s” when Raducanu was serving.
Not even against 2nd serves was Raducanu able to prevent coming under fire immediately after the return.
With such prowess behind her serve, it was only natural that Swiatek didn’t face a break point all match.
Swiatek on serve
1st serves won: 83% (20/24)
2nd serves won: 73% (8/11)
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During TV broadcast, it was shown that Swiatek’s average rally hit point was almost on top of the baseline while Raducanu was playing around 1.5 meters further back.
From our data, we can add that most of the rally shots were hit from the AD court.
AD court rally shots
Raducanu: 63%
Swiatek: 69%
Both players tried to upgrade to run-around forehands whenever possible. However, they still ended up hitting more backhands than forehands: 53% for Raducanu (70 of 133) and 63% for Swiatek (80 of 128).
This was no problem for Swiatek, whose gameplan was to target Raducanu’s backhand with her serves and rally shots and take the Brit’s forehand out of play.
It worked to perfection for the former #1.
Not only was Swiatek able to create a huge 19-point gap between backhand performances (0 to -19, in large part due to Raducanu’s 21 backhand errors), she was also sharp when chances to strike a big forehand arrived, finishing the match with 12 winners from that wing despite the relative low number of forehands hit.
Backhand Performances (returns & groundstrokes)
Raducanu: 2 winners / 21 errors = -19
Swiatek: 9 winners / 9 errors = 0
Forehand Performances (returns & groundstrokes)
Raducanu: 3 winners / 10 errors = -7
Swiatek: 12 winners / 8 errors = +4
In a flawless performance, Swiatek was perfect when going for crosscourt forehand groundstrokes, striking 5 winning shots with no unforced errors (orange box). She also explored her more favourable court position by inflicting damage through line attacks. On those plays, Swiatek accumulated 14 winning strikes with 6 unforced errors (green box).
Across the net, Raducanu’s groundstroke performance was only notorious for her 8 crosscourt backhand unforced errors (blue box).
Official extended highlights
Emma Raducanu (WTA #60) vs Iga Swiatek (WTA #2, seed 2)
2025 Australian Open Round 3 - Match Data
Set by Set Stats
Strategy Stats
Points won by rally length
Winners and Errors (returns and rally shots)
Serve and Return
Return & rallying performance
To find out more about the stats published here, please visit the following post.
While we follow the same criteria used on all major tennis events, our stats are collected through our own video analysis and are not official WTA or ITF stats.
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— Tennis Inside Numbers
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