PARIS — No much less an authority on clay-court tennis than Chris Evert thinks her file of seven French Open championships may very well be surpassed by Iga Swiatek.
“Completely,” Evert, a member of the Worldwide Tennis Corridor of Fame and ESPN analyst, mentioned in a telephone interview. “Iga is a participant on a mission. She’s extra targeted. She would not get upset in any respect when she’s dropping. She simply has all of the components to be a champion. She actually does. She checks all of the containers — the intangibles and the tangibles.”
Swiatek has been No. 1 within the WTA rankings for a lot of the previous two years and can search her fourth championship at Roland Garros — and fifth Grand Slam trophy general — when play begins on the clay-court main event Sunday.
The 22-year-old from Poland is trying to turn into the primary lady to win three consecutive French Opens since Justine Henin collected a trio from 2005 to 2007. And Swiatek is coming off a uncommon feat: She gained her previous two tournaments on clay at Madrid and Rome, the primary lady to tug off that clay double since Serena Williams did it 11 years in the past.
Swiatek, whose first trophy in Paris got here at age 19 in 2020, appears constructed for the floor the French name “terre battue.”
She slides so effectively. Modifications course so easily. Her large forehand can push a foe again. Her serving is as efficient as her returning.
“I simply assume Iga is probably the most strong of all gamers on the market. She would not appear to have any large holes in her sport,” mentioned Evert, who collected her prizes at Roland Garros within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties and closed her profession with 18 Grand Slam titles, the identical quantity as her nice on-court rival, Martina Navratilova. “She’s a superb front-runner. As soon as she will get going, and he or she’s profitable, she has that confidence.”
And, as Evert famous, Swiatek is as a lot a marvel mentally as she is gifted bodily. Among the credit score for that absolutely goes to Daria Abramowicz, the sports activities psychologist who travels the circuit with Swiatek and is a continuing presence at matches and at information conferences.
“I am all the time type of making an attempt to remain current and do the identical work it doesn’t matter what stage of the match I am in,” Swiatek mentioned. “So I believe that is the primary factor.”
She is 38-4 with 4 titles in 2024.
That kind of constant excellence is “unimaginable,” and Swiatek is “nice for the game,” mentioned four-time main champion Naomi Osaka, who may face her within the second spherical of the French Open.
Osaka additionally praised Swiatek for enjoying effectively week in and week out, “one thing that I actually cannot consider, or cannot fathom, again once I was No. 1 for like 5 seconds.”
There isn’t any sense of complacency with Swiatek. Nor does she — outwardly, anyway — get too down after a poor match. No victory or loss appears to linger along with her for too lengthy. It is merely on to the subsequent one.
“Even when I win, it would not stick in my head,” Swiatek mentioned. “I have fun for someday, then I am off to a different event, in my head, even.”
Opponents speak in regards to the problem of looking for a weak spot on courtroom in opposition to her. They usually uniformly describe a continuing sense of feeling as if Swiatek places them below strain, by no means permitting a second to discover a manner out.
“She’s unimaginable. Her consistency and her focus is kind of spectacular. The way in which she’s been type of dealing with her profession, to go from one event and hold the main target, for her, works very well,” mentioned Victoria Azarenka, a two-time Australian Open champion and former top-ranked participant.
As for what kind of success Swiatek may need because the years go by?
“On the long run, it is onerous to foretell. The tour is lengthy. Gamers have accidents, and so on., and so on., so I do not need to guess what’s going to occur,” Azarenka mentioned. “However in the mean time, she positively totally deserves to be No. 1, with the way in which she’s enjoying.”
