Iga Swiatek braved a two hour and 57-minute cliffhanger with Naomi Osaka in the second round, saving a match point to defeat the four-time Grand Slam champion in an instant classic, 7-6(1), 1-6, 7-5. It was a beautiful victory, the latest chapter of Swiatek’s growing legend on the terre battue of Paris. It was also an emotional experience that left her crying in the locker room after she left the court.
Potapova was riding high after reaching the round of 16 at a major for the first time in her career, but her momentum was quickly derailed by Swiatek, who went on the attack from the first ball and never let up, smothering the world No.41, winning 48 of 58 points to complete the victory in 40 blink-and-you-missed-it minutes.
It is the Pole’s second 6-0, 6-0 victory in as many years in Paris, and she has now won a total of 13 6-0 sets in her 34 career Roland-Garros matches.
All in a day’s work for the world No.1.
“It felt the same,” Swiatek said on court after the match. “I was just really focused and really in the zone – I wasn’t really looking at the score so I just continued playing my game and working on the stuff that I wanted to work on.”
The 40-minute duration represents the quickest match in Swiatek's career. According to the WTA, Swiatek is just the third player to rack up multiple 6-0, 6-0 victories in Roland-Garros history, joining Gabriela Sabatini (1992-93) and Mary Pierce (1993-94).
“It went pretty quickly, pretty weird,” Swiatek said.
Swiatek won 24 of 27 points on serve, and won all but seven points on return (24/31).
The 23-year-old hit 13 winners against just two unforced errors, while Potapova hit five winners against 19 unforced errors.
The top-ranked Pole improves to 32-2 lifetime at Roland-Garros and 81-10 on clay, and now moves on to face 2019 runner-up Marketa Vondrousova in the quarter-finals.
According to the WTA, Swiatek is the fourth-youngest WTA player in the Open era to make the last 16 in her first six appearances at Roland-Garros – older only than Gabriela Sabatini (1985-90), Iva Majoli (1993-98) and Conchita Martinez (1988-93).
Here at Roland-Garros, Swiatek is bidding to become the first woman to complete a successful women's singles three-peat since Justine Henin won her third consecutive title in 2007, and the first woman to complete a rare Madrid-Rome-Roland-Garros triple in the same season since Serena Williams in 2013.
