Iga Swiatek’s cold logic makes sure French Open trophy is in safe hands

T he man holding the camera leaned in towards Iga Swiatek. The man holding the pen held it out to her. The new French Open champion thought for a while about how to encapsulate her torrent of thoughts and emotions into a little glass square around the size of a Pop Tart. Eventually she scrawled a number – #4, for her fourth grand slam title – and a single word. “Surréel”.

And it really was surreal, or at least as about as surreal as it can ever be watching a habitual major champion win another major. For if the outcome was expected then virtually nothing else about this final was. It was one thing, and then suddenly it became a whole other thing: a regal procession that somehow morphed into a scrap for survival against the fearless and admirable Karolina Muchova, a match that dragged the world No 1 to places she had never been before, places she never wanted to go.

In a way, Swiatek’s whole existence has been constructed around avoiding these moments of high stress and high emotion. It is why she takes a psychologist, Daria Abramowicz, with her everywhere she goes on tour. Why she has coping strategies and mental exercises to preserve her balance. Why she constructs points with a cold and deadly logic that we may as well call genius. It is why Abramowicz banned her from finishing Gone With The Wind on the day of a crucial match, for fear that the highly-strung conclusion would drain her energy.

It is why she walks on to court with headphones on, blocking out the noise, trying to stay in her safe space until the last possible moment. Indeed Swiatek’s entire career feels like a search for safety, an attempt to protect herself from the tides and judgement of a sport that has broken and exhausted so many of her peers. So