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Iga Swiatek wins French Open title No 2, extends winning run
Iga Swiatek won her second French Open title, as she defeated Coco Gauff 6-1, 6-3 on Saturday.
When Ash Barty walked away from professional tennis in March, one wondered if the veneer of stability attached to the fickle landscape of women’s tennis too had gone away with her. After all, the Australian had won two of the previous three Grand Slams and had spent 114 consecutive weeks as the top-ranked women’s singles player.
Exit Barty. Enter Iga Swiatek.
The Pole quickly took off for a breathtaking flight since taking over the No 1 baton, and has now landed her Grand Slam No 2.
Much like she did against most of her opponents over the last few months, Swiatek swept aside the young and overawed Coco Gauff 6-1, 6-3 in the French Open women’s singles final on Saturday. Her record-equalling 35th consecutive match win wasn’t any different from the preceding 34: an epitome of supremacy and swagger on a tennis court.
It tied Swiatek with Venus Williams. They are the only two women to have won that number of matches on the trot this century. It also broke the chain of first-time women Grand Slam winners at the Roland Garros for the past six years.
Swiatek, 21, too was one of them at the 2020 French Open amid the pandemic, her astonishment and glee of winning a maiden Slam at 19 largely tucked under her face mask. This time, the moment Gauff’s return sailed long, Swiatek dropped to her knees yelling ‘C’mon’. She wasted no time in finding her way up to her box, giving out hugs to each member in it and a leaping first bump on her return to court to an applauding Court Philippe-Chatrier crowd.
As she held the Suzanne-Lenglen cup for a second time, her beaming face was clearly visible.
“Two years ago winning this title was amazing, something that I honestly didn’t expect,” Swiatek said on court. “This time I feel like I worked hard to do everything to get here. It was tough. The pressure was big.”
Right after she booked her quarter-final spot in Paris, Swiatek—who had her sports psychologist travel with her after revealing that anxiety had affected her game since her 2019 French Open victory—kept referring to the “stressful” nature of playing the high-stakes matches going deeper into Slams. Multiply that pressure for a red-hot world No 1 widely expected to win the tournament.
However, Swiatek showed no signs of that for the big final. It was the 18-year-old Gauff instead who, despite saying she had nothing to lose before the clash, turned up like she had everything to. Walking out with her earphones plugged in for her first Slam final appearance, the American began the match with her nerves dangling and strokes meandering.
Two feeble shots into the net, a double fault and a forehand error from Gauff handed Swiatek the break in the very first game. The Pole had to fight to hold her opening service game too but some strong first serves got her out of it. Gauff, meanwhile, continued to play tight, and another unforced error saw her broken again after saving four break points.
By the end of that third game, Gauff had won just three of her 11 points on the first serve while committing 10 unforced errors. Not the kind of numbers or tennis required to set the pace and lay the early marker against the favourite. All Swiatek had to do was stay disciplined with her game, which she did while also flaunting a few trademark shots of her own; like the ferocious forehand winner that kissed the sideline to complete the sixth game. The set lasted 32 minutes, the one game ticked off by the American in it doing little for her confidence.
Gauff needed something from somewhere to lift her morale and remain in the contest. A drop in level by Swiatek, suddenly and dramatically, gave her that. The teen struck first against the run of play in the second set after some uncharacteristic errors from the Swiatek racquet. For the first time in the match, Gauff found herself ahead at 1-0. And it got her going, a cracking forehand winner on the rise here and a cool drop shot winner there.
Unfortunately for her, Swiatek’s dip remained brief. As the Pole began finding her range again, the American went back to her misfiring and scratchy-serving self. A couple of errors and a double fault later, Gauff frittered away the advantage to make it 2-2. Swiatek then held to love and pounced on Gauff’s weak serves the next game with some menacing backhand returns.
Another break in the sixth game (Gauff won less than 50% points on both her serves for the match) and Swiatek almost stood on the finish line.
As she crossed it, Gauff sat on her chair weeping. She soon composed herself for her speech at the trophy ceremony, where she glanced towards Swiatek. “What you’ve done on the tour for the last couple of months is pretty amazing,” Gauff said.
Moments later, it was Swiatek’s turn to say a few words, and shed a few tears herself. “I just told Coco don’t cry,” she said. “What am I doing right now!”
Swiatek’s coach Tomasz Wiktorowski said: “To be honest, we did not count the victories. We live day by day, just the next match is important for us. This is the best way, to take everything step-by-step, one at a time. Just take the conclusion from the last match or the last couple of days and put it to court and practise the way and then these kind of amazing things can happen. This is my philosophy.”
Leaving a destructively dominant trail in modern day women’s tennis.
