Emma Raducanu facing friend as they plot their routes back to the top

Emma Raducanu’s second-round match at the Australian Open will pit her against a friend who also knows the pitfalls of teenage stardom.

Amanda Anisimova first reached the fourth round at Melbourne Park six years ago as a 17-year-old and made the semi-finals of the French Open and quarter-finals of Wimbledon before it all became too much and she stepped away for mental health reasons during 2023.

At the same time, Raducanu was off the tour following wrist and ankle surgeries, and both women will be looking to take another step back towards the top of the game with victory on Thursday.

It will be a first competitive meeting, but they have practised together and spend time together away from the court.

Raducanu can understand why Anisimova felt the need to step away, telling the PA news agency: “We coincidentally took time off at the same time, me for my surgeries, but having that time away does make you realise your hunger for the sport.

“I would say she came back and she did great things last year, so she’s an incredibly dangerous opponent. Tennis is obviously very challenging. It’s not easy. You play match after match.

“But, for me, I love it, and I think the process right now and how I’m operating, I’m not taking joy from just winning matches or losing.

“If you gave me the option of what to do in the morning, I would wake up and choose to do the processes and the training that I’m doing. So I think it’s a healthy way to look at it.”

Anisimova turned to painting during her break from tennis, not playing a match between April 2023 and the start of last season.

She had immediate success on her return with a run to the fourth round in Melbourne and had one of the best weeks of her career at the WTA 1000 event in Toronto in August, reaching the final.

Now ranked 35, Anisimova is feeling in a positive place ahead of the clash with Raducanu, saying: “I think there are a lot of lessons that I had to learn. You grow up very quickly, but at the same time I feel like that really prepares you for your career.

“We both have so much ahead of us. At the same time, we’re very young and we have so much experience, so I feel like that serves us with a lot of positives.

“I feel like, when I play these slams, I handle the nerves better because I’ve been on so many big stages at a young age. I wouldn’t trade all the memories I had from when I was younger.”

Raducanu, who is looking to reach the third round at Melbourne Park for the first time, shares a similar attitude to past challenges.

“I look back and there are certain things in hindsight that I would probably have done differently, but you can’t really go back and redo that,” she said. “You can just prevent that happening again.

“Any mistakes I’ve made in the past, it’s just feedback for what I’m going to avoid or continue doing in the future. And I think it’s always healthy to learn from what I did.”

On the court, Raducanu will hope to have a better serving day after 15 double faults in her opening-round win against Ekaterina Alexandrova.

The former US Open champion was one of four British women to reach the second round and Katie Boulter will also play on Thursday after scraping past Rebecca Marino.

Next up for the British number one is a clash with Russian Veronika Kudermetova, a former top-10 player now ranked down at 75.

“She’s a very good tennis player,” said Boulter, who has never been beyond round two in Melbourne.

“Obviously she’s dropped down the rankings a little bit recently. I’m not sure what the reasoning for that is, but I saw she played a really good match (on Tuesday) and I’m going to expect her top-10 level coming in.”