The world No.1 and trophy holder Iga Swiatek qualified for her third final at Roland-Garros by ending the course of the Brazilian Beatriz Haddad (14th) 6-2, 7-6 (9/7) in one just over two hours on Thursday. In the final on Saturday, Swiatek will face the unexpected Czech Karolina Muchova (43rd), who fell world No.2 Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/5), 6-7 (5/7), 7-5 after saving a match point earlier in the day. The qualification of Swiatek for the final associated with the defeat of Sabalenka ensures the 22-year-old Polish woman to remain world No.1 at the end of the Paris fortnight.
Swiatek will play the fourth Grand Slam final of his career. She hasn’t lost any yet. In addition to Roland-Garros 2022, she won for the first time on Parisian clay in 2020 and at the US Open in 2022. “It’s crazy! It’s hard to play such a long tournament, “said the world No.1. Haddad “is left-handed and she played it, she knows how to put a lot of topspin but also play flat to be more aggressive. I’m happy to have been solid, especially in the tie break,” she added.
Picked up cold by a white break at the start of the first set, Swiatek immediately raised the bar, and more solid, more enterprising and more precise than Haddad in the exchange, she left only another game in this opening round to his novice opponent in the last four in a Grand Slam. That didn’t deter the Brazilian left-hander, who has already shown her fighting spirit time and time again: first she led 3 games to 1, then once Swiatek came back and both players in the tiebreaker, she got a ball to equalize a set everywhere, 6 points to 5. But she did not convert it and the Pole converted her second match point a few points later.
The “ole, ole, ole, ola, Bia, Bia” launched by the yellow and green spots scattered in the stands of the Central court, in the colors of the Brazilian flag, not so numerous but very sound, were not enough to reverse the logic. Haddad (27) is nevertheless, by far, the player who has given Swiatek the most trouble since the start of the Paris fortnight. Even if the world N.1 will appear in the final on Saturday without having missed a single set.
Swiatek becomes the youngest player to reach her third final at Roland-Garros since Monica Seles between 1990 and 1992. The first Brazilian player to reach the last four at Roland-Garros in the Open era (since 1968), Haddad could break into the top 10 on Monday, provided Muchova does not win the Parisian Grand Slam.
