For the first time since Simona Halep in 2018, a player will play in the Roland-Garros final two years in a row. Defending champion, world number 1 Iga Swiatek, also titled in Paris in 2020, won in two sets (6-2, 7-6) Thursday against Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia.
Iga Swiatek is the best player on the planet. At Roland-Garros, in particular, the Pole seems practically unplayable every time she sets foot on the court, whether on the Philippe-Chatrier, which has become her garden over the years, or elsewhere in the stadium. The world number 1 proved it again this Thursday by managing to stop a Beatriz Haddad Maia that no one had managed to stop since the start of the fortnight, no more Ons Jabeur in the quarter-finals than the others. Swiatek put an end to the magnificent journey of the great Brazilian who will enter the top ten in the world in the next ranking.
She nevertheless suffered as never before in this edition to manage to dismiss the finalist in Toronto from last season. “She has a very good game on clay with a lot of topspin, but she can play on the flat too, it was not easy because I knew that at any time the match could change sides”, recognized the winner afterwards. Before having the last word at the end of a very disputed decisive game (9-7), the defending champion, who had on the other hand easily held her rank in the first round, had even had to erase a set point , his first of the fortnight.
Swiatek will “do everything to get there”
However, the essentials are assured once again for the world number 1 who was certainly scared for the first time (“I’m really happy to have been able to finish this match in the second set, especially since the tiebreaks haven’t really worked for me lately”), but will defend their trophy in the final. What no player had done since Simona Halep, who had also kept her property, in 2018.
And as Swiatek has already won the tournament twice (she also won in 2020), it is a third coronation on her favorite clay that she could afford on Saturday in the event of success against the surprising Karolina Muchova . “It’s really incredible, I will do everything to get there, of course”assured Swiatek before leaving the court.