Paris, June 5 (BUS): Iga Swiatek’s winning streak is starting to look like a burden, she said, with all the attention she’s gained as she has grown, and all the pressure to keep her going, especially with the Grand Slam title at sea.
Despite the quality of her forehands, the skill of her early kick reflexes, and the more her serve continually improved, what Swiatek needed, above all else, was a way to shut out the noise, ignore all the stats and facts, and find a way to focus – match to match, set to set , game to game, point to point, shot to shoot.
During the French Open, she did so off the court by reading (Alexander Dumas’s “Three Musketeers” was an option) and on the court by singing a Dua Lipa song she called “guilty pleasure” in her head.
Most of all, it allowed her to play to rule the day. Thanks to a 6-1 6-3 victory over 18-year-old American Coco Gauff in Saturday’s final, top seed Swiatek leaves Roland Garros for her second championship — and a streak of 35 games without a loss, The Associated Press reports.
“It’s, basically, the hardest part of the job, I think, because you can see at the Grand Slams there are a lot of surprises. And then 21-year-old Swiatek said after adding this trophy to the one she won in Paris in 2020 when I ranked outside the top 50, it’s not easy to deal with all those different atmospheres and pressure.
“For me, it felt like baggage. The hardest thing is not allowing yourself to think about it and over-analyzing and not allowing yourself to think about all the numbers and possibilities.”
Ah yes. Numbers. It’s a great.
Swiatek has won the past six tournaments. She’s won 56 of her past 58 sets. She is 42-3 this season. She won 16 sets 6-0. And her now unbeaten streak is better than Serena Williams’ best ever, 34, and equals the longest this century (Williams’ older sister, Venus, made 35 appearances in 2000).
Swiatek said, “Kind of doing something more than Serena did, it’s something special.”
Swiatek has emerged as a dominant figure in tennis, entering a chasm that presented herself with 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena out of court for nearly a year, and three-time main champ Ash Party announcing in March that she would retire at the age of 25 and give up the number one ranking.
This allowed Swiatek to rise to the top of the WTA, and she showed she was worth staying there.
“She does a good job of enduring pressure moments and living up to the occasion. Today she rose to the occasion,” said 18th seed Gauff, who was appearing in her first Grand Slam final and not dropping a set in the tournament.
“I’m doing it well, but today, she was on another level.”
Gauff is now 0-3 against Swiatek.
“The past few months have been really great and you totally deserve it,” Goff told Swiatek, then added a chuckle, “Hopefully we can play each other in more finals, and maybe I can beat you one of these days.”
On the tournament’s hottest day, when the temperature was 82 degrees Fahrenheit (28 degrees Celsius), a few bursts of white in the initially blue sky turned into the alarming thick gray clouds of the second set, accompanied by the pounding of thunder. The match ended after an hour and 8 minutes before the rain arrived.
Gauff didn’t get off to the best of starts: He was 4-0 in no time.
Swiatek broke straight right from the start, with great help from Gauff, who fired a forehand into the net, and a double fault – which drew some sighs of “Awwwww” from the crowd – threw a forehand into the net, pushing another long forehand.
Not in all cases, of course, but more often than not, Roland Garros’ spectators tend to support the underdog or any late player – both of which hold true for Gauff. So there was an abundance of shouts of “Alize, Coco!” Someone shouted, “Coco, you can do that!” There were frequent cries of her two-syllable first name.
When things seemed to move away from her, Gough slapped her on the thigh, covered her eyes, shook her head, or looked at her parents in the stands.
What you never do is hesitate or give up on anything.
Gauff started the second set by breaking Swiatek for the only time, then held out to go up 2-0. Could this turn out to be a much closer competition?
Can Joff push Swiatek to the third set? number.
Swiatek quickly recalibrated and reasserted herself, breaking backwards for 2-all as Gauff’s penchant for errors returned. By the end, Gauff had more non-force fouls, 23-16, as well as fewer winners: 14 for her, and 18 for Swiatek.
Also key to Swiatek’s presence, and rapidly burgeoning aura, is her calmness on the court. She traveled on tour with a sports psychologist, who was in the guest box at Swiatek on Saturday, working on various elements of her professional and personal life.
That includes focusing on maintaining focus and setting priorities, such as determination that it is still very new in this whole business of trying to win Grand Slam titles that I decided it was best not to attend the Champions League final in Paris last weekend is something to do. Nadal.
Perhaps two years down the road, Sweetick predicted that a night out might be a welcome distraction. Swiatek said she currently felt she needed to keep all of her attention on tennis.
Why mess with success?