The Pole retains her title and wins Roland-Garros for the third time in her career, at only 22 years old, thanks to her victory over the Czech on Saturday (6-2, 5-7, 6-4).
Who else but Iga Swiatek? Arrived in the position of favorite in Paris, the Pole won at Roland-Garros (6-2, 5-7, 6-4) in 2h49, Saturday June 10, at the end of a tournament during which she largely dominated each of his opponents, until the final. She had the luxury of not conceding any sets during the fortnight, but Karolina Muchova gave her a hard time in the final. The Czech, a novice at this stage of the competition in a Grand Slam tournament, suffered the unstoppable accuracy of the world number 1 in the first set, before rebelling in the second set. Despite struggling to hold serve, Iga Swiatek finally got the upper hand and lifted the Suzanne-Lenglen Cup for the third time at just 22 years old. She is the first player to retain her Porte d’Auteuil title since Justine Hénin in 2006 and 2007.
When she last met Karolina Muchova in 2019, Iga Swiatek, who was then starting her professional career, felt “like a newcomer”wondering if she was “legit”. On Saturday, on the Philippe-Chatrier court, this feeling changed sides, and doubts were felt on the side of the Czech, for her first appearance at this stage of the competition, when she was in 235th place in the world. 10 months ago after a series of injuries. Yet the faller of Maria Sakkari and Aryna Sabalenka in this Roland-Garros, Karolina Muchova struggled to break free and find solutions in the first set, only intermittently showing her great tennis qualities seen in previous matches.
By sometimes taking too many risks, the Czech also gave points to Iga Swiatek. While facing her, the determined Pole, with remarkable and extremely fair composure, only committed her first unforced error in the fourth game of the first set, to become the first, men and women alike, to win the first seven sets of his Grand Slam finals in the Open era.
A first set lost for Iga Swiatek on this edition
But little by little, Karolina Muchova took the measure of the event, and her very complete game, against the very effective tennis of Iga Swiatek, led to a tighter second set. The Czech tightened the game even more to give herself a first opportunity to serve for the set, but doubts then reappeared and the Pole came back at 5-5. It was only a postponement for Karolina Muchova, who managed to break again and win the second set after a series of hotly contested spectacular points, thus becoming the first to take a set from Iga Swiatek at this Roland-Garros.
With an impressive list of hunts, and in particular the eliminations of Maria Sakkari and Aryna Sabalenka to her credit in this Roland-Garros, the Czech thought she could fill “compete” with Iga Swiatek. “This kind of match is always very tight. You never know, you can win or lose for nothing, except for one ball”, she predicted at a press conference. The rest of the story proved him right, since the two players went blow for blow, taking turns taking the face-off from their opponent, in a balanced third set. And with all her experience and champion mentality, Iga Swiatek cracked her opponent, guilty of a double fault on the first match point.
The long seconds during which she remained crouched on the court to realize that she had just won Roland-Garros again testify to the difficulty encountered in overcoming Karolina Muchova during this final, disputed in 2h46 of play, while she had only spent 7:41 on the courts in her previous six matches. At 22, Iga Swiatek thus wins her third Roland-Garros after her victories in 2020 and 2022, and finds herself in the same time frame as her idol, Rafael Nadal.