Photo: ANP
Tennis star Iga Swiatek also gave up just four games in her second match at Roland Garros. The Polish, who celebrated her 22nd birthday on Wednesday, settled down 6-4, 6-0 with American Claire Liu in the space of an hour and a half.
The match showed many similarities to her opening round match. Then Swiatek settled on the same track with Spain’s Christina Buxa and then the group positions were 6-4 and 6-0. Just as there had been two days earlier, there was a treacherous wind on the field that Philippe Chatrier and Swiatek were clearly struggling with.
Swiatek started actively against Leo and immediately ran to a 3-0 lead. However, she converted in her serve game twice and let the world number 102 go back to 3-3. After a fresh break, Swiatek had no problem in the opening set and at 5-4 finished the match with a love game. The set lasted 55 minutes.
In the second set, it just wasn’t exciting anymore, and after an hour and 29 minutes, the world number one sealed the match with a backhand victory, her 24th match winner.
Swiatek, who won the title at Roland Garros in 2020 and 2022, has won 20 of her last 21 matches in Paris. She will face Chinese Wang Xinyu on Saturday in the third round.
Last year, Swiatek was too strong for American Coco Gauff in the final, who had no problems eliminating Austrian Julia Grabher on Thursday. It became 6-2, 6-3 for the sixth-seeded American.
Grabher was very strong in the opening round in two sets for Arantxa Roos, the only Dutch entrant in the women’s singles.
Tunisian Anas Jabeur, who is seventh on the French ranking list, gave Oussin Doudin only five matches. In 71 minutes it’s 6-2 6-3.
