Iga Swiatek a Pole apart with the strengths to take Paris by storm

As the new tennis season slowly commenced last year, the then 19-year-old Iga Swiatek was still in the process of testing the limits of her own strengths. The beginning of 2021 had marked her first tournaments since a transcendent French Open title in October 2020 and after admirably reaching the Australian Open fourth round, Swiatek lost in three tough sets to the former world No 1 Simona Halep.

When she spoke after that match, Swiatek marvelled at how much more space Halep had within her game to alter her tactics and solve problems on the court, something she thought she lacked. “I think that’s the difference between the champions and less experienced players,” she said, smiling sheepishly. “Because I didn’t feel like I had many options.”

At the time, it seemed an amusing comment from a player with so much talent at her grasp. Seventeen months later, it is hard not to think about how quickly things have changed whenever she is on the court. Swiatek is already that champion in the eyes of all the other players, and every single time she has competed over the past three months she has been the one with a deeper toolbox, crushing all challengers.

“Right now I can find solutions and use different skills to sometimes come back and sometimes just have an advantage over my opponent,” she said on the eve of the Italian Open, the final big event before the French Open. “That’s basically the thing that I’m most proud of, because I was working really hard on that. Last year I felt like I didn’t have many choices. This year it has changed.”

By the end of that week in Rome, she had done it again. As she smothered Ons Jabeur 6-2, 6-2, Swiatek won her fifth consecutive tournament. She enters the French Open on a 28-match streak, a