‘Sky’s the limit’ for Iga Swiatek after reaching French Open semi-final

Over the past few months, Iga Swiatek has convincingly demonstrated her superiority over the rest of the field as she piled up points, victories and tournaments while aspiring to dominate all opponents in her path. Doing so at a grand slam tournament, however, while managing the heightened pressure and attention, is a different challenge altogether.

So far, Swiatek has thrived in this new role. After experiencing the “cold shower” of a rare lost first set in the fourth round, Swiatek returned with a clean, efficient performance against the second highest player left in the draw, bulldozing 11th seed Jessica Pegula 6-3, 6-2 to reach the semi-final in Paris on her 21st birthday.

Swiatek has now extended her remarkable winning streak to 33 matches, the third greatest women’s run of the 21st century. This marks her third career grand slam semi-final after her victory here in 2020 and her semi-final run in the Australian Open in January.

Because of her inexperience in 2020 and her hard-court record respectively, both of those semi-finals were surprise runs. Now she is at a different stage in her career: “This time I feel like I’m in the right place and that place that I worked for really hard,” she said.

Afterwards, Swiatek reflected on what she learnt as a 20-year-old in a year that her life changed: “I kind of felt like the sky’s the limit for me, so I feel more free right now, I feel like I’ve proven myself. A lot has changed in my mind and for sure I also realise that I can actually be No. 1 and really cope with it properly. So that’s pretty cool.”

Swiatek next faces Daria Kasatkina, the 20th seed, who had Veronika Kudermetova on a string with her deep toolbox of shots as she won 6-4, 7-6(5) to reach her maiden grand slam