miraculously, Iga Swiatek snatches her qualification for the third round after a long fight against Naomi Osaka

The defending champion and world No. 1 was very scared and had to put aside a match point to continue her adventure at Porte d’Auteuil.

The poster was enticing. She kept her promises, but the logic was ultimately respected. The defending champion, Iga Swiatek, dominated Naomi Osaka in three sets (7-6 [7-1], 1-6, 7-5) and 2h57 of play in the second round of Roland-Garros, Wednesday May 29. Accustomed to flying over the debates at Porte d’Auteuil, the Pole was pushed very far to her limits, to the point of having to dismiss a match point in the last set, to eliminate the one who occupied the place of world n°1 five years ago.

After the early Rafael Nadal-Alexander Zverev poster in the men’s draw, the tournament has already been entitled to a second legendary match even though it is only just beginning. The level offered by the two players will almost have made us forget this gloomy and rainy day, which caused the cancellation of all the matches supposed to be played on the annex courts and the Simonne-Mathieu. To understand the feat achieved by Naomi Osaka, you should know that Iga Swiatek had never given up so many games in a match played in the first week of the Paris tournament in six appearances. This is only the second time that she has dropped a set at the start of a tournament (after her 3rd round against Monica Puig in 2019, for her first appearance).

Ironically, it was in the tournament where she never really felt comfortable – she never did better than a 3rd round – where she withdrew from the middle of the competition to preserve herself mentally in 2020 , that the Japanese signs a resounding return to the highest level. For the woman who is now only 134th in the world and has not been in the top 10 for three years, defeating the one who beat her in her very last final on the WTA circuit, in Miami in 2022, surely represented additional motivation. .

It took a lot to overcome Iga Swiatek, absolute reference on clay, undefeated in her last 16 matches at Roland-Garros (two sets lost in this series). Showing extreme diligence, Osaka recovered after each missed shot, mimicking the right gesture. She added resilience. After losing the first set in a tie-break over Iga Swiatek, who seemed to have already written the outcome of the match, she left no room for discouragement.

Relying on a solid delivery, her first ball sometimes flirting with 200 km/h, she only dropped one point on her serve in the second set. Perhaps disoriented in the face of so much adversity so early in the fortnight, the Pole thwarted, committing many more direct errors than usual. To the point of losing confidence on serve (48% of first serves, 9% of points won on second serve), allowing Osaka to break three times.

The standoff gave the impression of having swung definitively in her favor when, in the third set, Naomi Osaka led 3-0, then served to win the match at 5-2. The Japanese even got herself a match point, but Iga Swiatek is not the type to give up so easily. She broke immediately and came back level at 5-5. These two blows to the head did not prevent Osaka from continuing to offer a very high level of play, but a few inaccuracies opened the door for Swiatek, and the Pole hit the nail on the head, winning five consecutive games to raise her arms. She will face the Croatian Jana Fett or the Czech Marie Bouzkova in the 3rd round.