Grabbing it with both hands: A day after the lid came off the Suzanne Lenglen Cup, Swiatak was calm and composed as she posed in front of the Eiffel Tower.
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It is tough to stop Iga Swiatek when she wins the opening set. On clay, the challenge becomes bigger. The 22-year-old Pole has a 53-1 win-loss record (excluding retirements) on the surface at WTA events after taking the first set. That defeat came against Czech Republic’s Karolina Muchova back in 2019 in Prague when she was a teenager.
Swiatek has now been at the top of the WTA rankings for more than a year and has accumulated two French Open (2020, 2022) and one US Open (2022) titles in her fledgling career. On Sunday, going for her third title at Roland-Garros, she faced who else but Muchova in the final on Court Philippe Chatrier.
As expected, she grabbed the opening set 6-2 and also got the early break of serve to lead 3-0 in the second. However, her unseeded Czech opponent bounced back to win 7-5 to take the final to a decider.
Prague flashback? Could Muchova, who was told by the doctors “not to do sport anymore”, pull it off again?
It certainly looked like happening again. World No. 43 Muchova had stunned Maria Sakkari in the first round and stole a spot in the summit clash from World No. 2 and reigning Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka from match-point down to beat her 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 7-5 in an epic semifinal.
The advantage the Czech has is that her playing style of using a lot of backhand slices, drop shots, rushing to the net and finishing the points with deft volleys is not that common any more. More often than not, it disrupts the rhythm of her opponents.
In a memorable final for the Parisian crowd, Muchova looked set to do it to Swiatek as well as she broke her twice, only to drop her own serve soon in the third set.
The 26-year-old earned another chance to move ahead with a break point at 40-30 in the ninth game but this was as close as she could get as Swiatek won seven of the next eight points with the title-clinching one coming off a Muchova double fault.
Bagels to battles
From dishing out four bagels (6-0 sets) in her first four rounds to facing a spirited Brazilian in Beatriz Haddad Maia in the semifinals and finally coming up against Muchova, the path to glory was a roller-coaster ride for the Pole.
Swiatek had not faced such pressure in her previous three Grand Slam finals. Clay has been her most dominant surface but on Saturday, she looked…
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