After getting 'blown off the court' by Iga Swiatek in the past, Emma Navarro now ready for Australian Open challenge

Emma Navarro didn't start the 2025 season that well, losing two of the first three matches she played. That wasn't ideal for a top 10 ranked player ahead of the first Major of the year, but she's done really well at the event itself. She's still not playing her best tennis, but she's winning matches, which is ultimately the most important thing.

All four of her matches at the Australian Open so far have gone the distance, and she won all of them in three sets. Only one of those, however, was a match where she lost the first set, so it's been a lot of battling and grinding from Navarro. She'll need every bit of that in the upcoming match because she's facing Iga Swiatek, who has been on fire lately, winning matches with ease.

The first and only time they met was in 2018 at the Charleston event, where Swiatek won 6-0, 6-2. Navarro was asked in the post-match press conference after beating Daria Kasatkina about that match, and she admitted that it was one of the rare instances she can remember being 'blown off the court' by a player.

"Yeah, I do. When I look back at my tennis career, I feel like there were not too many times when I was totally blown off the court, and I was definitely kind of blown off the court playing her. I think maybe at the time she was ranked 200, and we played at my home club in Charleston, and I was like, wow, this girl is pretty good."

Many years have passed since then, and Navarro has improved dramatically as a player. Swiatek herself has improved, becoming one of the best players in the world, but Navarro expects herself to do much better this time around.

"Circumstances are definitely different now. I feel like I'm pretty good too. I'm ready for a good challenge."

It should be a good match because stylistically it's a fascinating matchup, and Navarro has the skill needed to make it a bit complicated for the former World No. 1.

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Emma Navarro dissects what went wrong against Swiatek in 2018

The match in 2018 wasn't very close, and it mostly had to do with Swiatek being the player with more power and more speed compared to Navarro. It was just a dominant display from the Polish player.

2025 Australian Open - Day 9 - Source: Getty

"I just felt like I kind of didn't have a chance. I was a way different player in 2018 than I am now. I felt like I didn't have the power, the speed, didn't have anything that could challenge her. I felt like I would just put balls into the court, and she would hit winners. Kind of like a little bit of a clinic," Navarro said in the aforementioned press conference.

Navarro has better tools to deal with that this time around but she'll need to play with more power and more speed. Otherwise, she risks getting blown off the court again because Swiatek is playing really strong tennis right now.