Iga Swiatek refused to take victory at the French Open for granted despite romping to a third Rome title when sweeping aside Aryna Sabalenka 6-2, 6-3 in Saturday’s Internazionali BNL d’Italia final.
World No. 1 Swiatek is the red-hot favorite to defend her Roland Garros crown after comfortably prevailing on the clay against second-ranked Sabalenka.
In front of a packed center court crowd Swiatek became the first woman since Serena Williams in 2013 to win on the clay surface at Madrid and Rome in the same season.
Photo: AFP
She can join Williams in a European capital city hat-trick if she wins her fourth French Open title, and third in a row, with the clay-court Grand Slam starting in Paris on May 26.
“Obviously I am confident. I feel like I’m playing great tennis, but that doesn’t change the fact that I just want to stay humble,” Swiatek said.
“Grand Slams are different. There’s a different pressure on the court and off the court,” she said. “Of course I love to come to Paris and be there. It a great place for me to be and I really enjoy my time there, but these are a hard seven matches that you need to win, so I don’t take anything for granted.”
Swiatek won her 12th successive match on clay by besting Belarus’ Sabalenka as she did in the recent Madrid final.
The Pole took her winning record over Sabalenka to 8-3 in another hugely impressive display from what has been an almost flawless tournament from the four-time Grand Slam winner: She did not drop a single set on her way to another championship victory.
Saturday’s match was less dramatic than Madrid’s three-set thriller, as Sabalenka, who has won the two most recent Australian Opens, gave herself too much to do.
Swiatek took the opening set in just 36 minutes in a clinical display of tennis against Sabalenka, who has said repeatedly that Rome is her dream tournament to win.
Going into Saturday’s final, Swiatek had won 97 percent of her matches in which she went one set ahead since the start of 2022 and Sabalenka did not help her cause by wasting seven break points over two games in the second set.
After Swiatek broke Sabalenka’s serve in game seven it was only a matter of time before she closed out the match and championship.
“I would say the first set I didn’t play well at all. I wasn’t, I don’t know, feeling my game well,” Sabalenka said. “In the second set I just tried to stay a little bit more aggressive... I just tried to put her a little bit under pressure.”
“I had couple of opportunities to break her serve. Probably if I would take that opportunity, the match would go differently. I didn’t use it, so it is how it is,” she said.
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