Emma Raducanu was handed the worst grand slam defeat of her career on Saturday, dumped out of the Australian Open by Iga Swiatek 6-1, 6-0. The only person who troubled Swiatek on this day in reality was Marija Cicak,

Despite this setback, Raducanu had outperformed her ranking by taking down 26th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova and the dangerous Amanda Anisimova in the previous two rounds. Asked to sum up her tournament as a whole, she focused on the upsides.

It was a year of frequent coaching changes for Raducanu. Having won the U.S. Open with Andrew Richardson, she replaced him with Torben Beltz just two months after winning the title. By April 2022, Beltz was out and Dimitry Tursunov, who had worked with Annett Kontaveit while she reached No. 2 in the world, was in.