French Open 2025: Emma Raducanu loses to Iga Swiatek at Roland Garros

Looking at the bigger picture, Raducanu has made encouraging strides over the past three months.

She has climbed back into the top 50 after an injury-hit couple of years, showing progress by reaching the Miami Open quarter-finals and the Italian Open last 16.

That has been a benefit of playing with more freedom since appointing Mark Petchey as her coach in an “informal” arrangement in March.

Against Swiatek, though, she was unable to do that.

“I think I have made progress since January, maybe not in this match, but in general,” said Raducanu, who also lost 6-1 6-0 to Swiatek at the Australian Open four months ago.

“I do think I’ve improved and I think the way I’ve been going about things has been a lot better and lot more consistent.

“But there is a long way to go to where I want to be.”

While a more rigid approach was caused partly by her opponent’s depth of return and ability to change angles, Raducanu’s ball-striking was also well below her best.

Sticking in the rallies with the fifth seed was a tough task and demonstrated how difficult Raducanu still finds returning ball after ball against the intensity of the top stars.

It was a similar story against American world number two Coco Gauff on the Rome clay earlier this month.

While Raducanu has undoubtedly made progress with her resilience, the fact she has only won three of her 14 career matches against top-10 players indicates she still has to improve.

“There is a big difference as you go up into the top five and then playing Grand Slam champions, it is a completely different ball game,” she added.

“[Against Swiatek] you just don’t really feel like there is that much space on the court, and in certain moments you overhit, because you just feel constant pressure.

“I definitely think I can improve certain areas of my game to maybe make me feel like I have less holes.”