Emma Raducanu is through to the third round of the Australian Open for the first time after battling through injury to beat her friend Amanda Anisimova 6-3, 7-5.

The 22-year-old required treatment on what looked like a lower back issue – it has been troubling her since a spasm before Christmas – but she toughed out the win and will face the mighty Iga Swiatek on Saturday.

‘I’m looking forward to testing my game against the best,’ said Raducanu, who is yet to win a set in three previous meetings with the great Pole. ‘Ultimately, you play tennis and you live for these matches. It’s going to be a great buzz of adrenaline.’

Another huge plus is that, as she did in winning two tiebreak sets in her first round against Ekaterina Alexandrova, Raducanu executed in the big moments. She saved eight of 10 break points she faced and took eight of the 13 she was offered.

‘I haven’t fully investigated it yet,’ she said of the back issue. ‘Small niggles are going to come up here and there. I’m just hoping that it is that.

Emma Raducanu is through to the third round of the Australian Open for the first time

The Brit battled through injury to beat her friend Amanda Anisimova (pictured) 6-3, 7-5

The former 2021 US Open champion required on-court treatment from a physio 

‘I was able to push past some pain today. I don’t know how I managed to fight back in the second set.’

Raducanu’s back spasmed in pre-season when she bent to lace her shoes and that knocked her out of two weeks’ training and the Auckland Open.

Even here in Melbourne she was struggling to serve at full tilt in practice and in her first round victory against Ekaterina Alexandrova she hit 15 double faults.

So there was clearly still some residual discomfort but she plotted her way superbly through the first set, although it was noticeable that she was speaking more to fitness trainer Yutaka Nakamura than coach Nick Cavaday.

In the first game of the second set she hit three double faults and the wincing became a little more pronounced. At 3-0 down the physio arrived and worked both hips, apparently to try to loosen the lower back.

The odds seemed heavily stacked in Anisimova’s favour but tennis is a curious sport and it can be the case that an injury to an opponent can wrangle a player’s mind. This was a stark example as Anisimova lost her head completely for three games.

The temptation when playing an injured opponent is to stay steady and make them run but that is not Anisimova’s game, and in departing from her aggressive style she lost all rhythm. In one service game she hit two doubles and a measly 111kph second serve.

Raducanu got it back to 3-3 and led 30-0 on her own serve but Anisimova reeled off four points. The physio returned in the next changeover.

Raducanu broke straight back though and served at 4-4 in what felt like a massive game. At 30-30 Anisimova had her on the run in the forehand corner; Raducanu flung out an arm and clawed back a raking low ball. She roared and fist pumped, the first display of positive emotion since the medical timeout.

Raducanu doesn’t have the greatest track record of battling through injury but brushed it off

It felt like such a significant shot, not only in the context of the match but in terms of the ‘end-of-range’ physical work she has been doing with Nakamura to strengthen Raducanu in just such a situation as that.

‘I was moving really well into the corners today,’ said Raducanu. ‘I was able to get to some balls that maybe I wouldn’t have been able to previously.’

She won the next point too and raised a defiant fist to the sky. There was another superb end-of-range slice backhand as Anisimova served successfully to stay in the set.

Raducanu was hustling and fighting, scraping and scrapping balls back into play. Anisimova is as good a ball striker as there is in world tennis but when she is required to improvise around the forecourt she struggles, so Raducanu’s low defensive shots troubled her.

Once again Anisimova served to stay in the match but this time Raducanu earned a match point. She played a lovely skimming slice and Anisimova predictably chopped it wide.

Raducanu put her hands to her head in disbelief and there was a warm embrace between the two friends at the net.

‘I’ve played friends a few times now,’ said Raducanu. ‘I think today was the best I’ve handled it in terms of leaving it off the court. As soon as we stepped on the court we just put that aside and were both trying to beat each other.

‘It’s not necessarily the nicest feeling.’