Emma Raducanu says she has nothing to lose and will try to swing freely as she faces Iga Swiatek, the world No 2 and five-time grand slam champion, in the third round of the Australian Open on Saturday in one of the biggest matches of her career outside her 2021 US Open title run.

“I really relish [big occasions],” said Raducanu. “I love the big ­stadiums, the big matches. It’s something that I just really enjoy doing. And it’s so nice to also just go a round further than I did in the last three years that I played here. Australia is somewhere where I really like playing. I like the conditions, I like the crowd and the support here has been amazing, with a lot of union jacks in the crowd as well, which is great. It’s a match that I’m looking forward to.”

Over the past three years, Raducanu and Swiatek have played three times but their only hard-court match came at Indian Wells in 2023. Raducanu is yet to win a set against Swiatek, but she was competitive in their Stuttgart quarter-final match last year, losing 7-6 (2), 6-3. She has never ­previously faced a top-five opponent at a grand slam tournament.

“It will be a very good match for me,” said Raducanu. “Every match I can play against these top opponents, I’m loving it. It’s another opportunity to test my game and see where I’m at. Obviously she’s achieved so much already and I think going into it, I have nothing to lose, I’m just going to swing.”

At 23, Swiatek is only one year older than her opponent. The pair faced each other on the junior ­circuit, with the Polish player ­defeating ­Raducanu comprehensively en route to winning the Wimbledon girls’ title. Swiatek then won her first grand slam title at the 2020 French Open a year before the Briton won the 2021 US Open. Their paths have since diverged, with Swiatek establishing herself as one of the best players of the 21st ­century while ­Raducanu has struggled to remain fit. The 22-year-old says that it is ­important not to compare trajectories.

“I’ve seen her win a lot, but I also know that we’ve had very different paths,” she said. “She was ­playing since a very young age, and my hours in comparison were probably a bit comical when I was 17, 18 playing six hours a week. I don’t think it was the same trajectory. Now I’m ­working on building those foundations, and everyone kind of does things at their own pace.”

As she looked towards their match in Melbourne, Swiatek acknowledged the challenge of backing up a grand slam title: “For sure it’s hard,” she said. “I don’t know, even sometimes when I lose some matches, I realise that people just expect me to win because I won so much earlier, that they got used to it. But no, this is constant work and taking care of many things also off the court and having good people around you, managing your whole life basically so you can play good and consistently. ­Everybody’s story is different, and everybody struggles with different stuff, but it doesn’t matter.

“When we’re going to be out there on the court, whoever is going to play better will win, and that’s it. I’ll just focus on tennis.

“We have different stories, but before the match, I’m not going to really think about that. I’ll just prepare based on how she plays now and that’s it.”