U.S.’ Coco Gauff plays a backhand against Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur in the women’s quarterfinal match at the French Open 2024 tennis championship, at Roland Garros in Paris on June 4, 2024.
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Coco Gauff and defending champion Iga Swiatek will meet in the French Open semifinals after victories on June 4.
No. 3 seed Gauff came back to defeat Ons Jabeur 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 to reach the semifinals at a third consecutive Grand Slam tournament. No. 1 Swiatek followed in Court Philippe Chatrier with a 6-0, 6-2 victory against Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova to stretch her Roland Garros winning streak to 19 matches as she seeks a third trophy in a row in Paris and fourth in five years.
Gauff won her first major title at the U.S. Open in September, then made it to the final four at the Australian Open in January. The 20-year-old American was the runner-up to Swiatek at the French Open in 2022.
Overall, Swiatek has won 10 of 11 meetings against Gauff, including a 6-4, 6-3 semifinal win on clay last month en route to the Italian Open title.
Other than a tough, tight three-set triumph over four-time major champion Naomi Osaka in the second round last week, Swiatek has been at her dominant best in this French Open, showing why she has led the WTA rankings nearly every week since April 2022 and is a popular pick to leave with another title.
Take away the 17 games Osaka managed, and Swiatek has dropped a total of only 11 games in her other four matches so far.
Swiatek followed up her 6-0, 6-0 shutout of Anastasia Potapova in the fourth round by grabbing the initial seven games against Vondrousova.
And make no mistake: Vondrousova is no slouch. In addition to being a Grand Slam champion, she was a finalist at Roland Garros in 2019, won a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics and is currently ranked No. 6.
But she never stood a chance against Swiatek, who compiled 25 winners to just 10 unforced errors. Swiatek, a 23-year-old from Poland, faced just one break point — and, naturally, she saved it.
Jabeur’s mix of speeds and spins gave Gauff fits at times. And as well-known as Gauff is for her ability to cover the court and play defense, Jabeur managed to keep coming up with winners, finishing with 30 in all.
“She was playing really well the whole match. She was hitting a lot of winners on me, which is something I’m not used to against anybody,” Gauff said. “So today I was just trying to just be aggressive toward the end.”
Gauff pulled away…