Iga Swiatek played like the current No. 1 and the two-time defending champion at the French Open. No surprise there. That Naomi Osaka looked like the former No. 1 that she is — and on clay, no less — amounted to an announcement that she is still quite capable of elite tennis.
Surging down the stretch as Osaka faded, Swiatek saved a
match point and grabbed the last five games to sneak her way to a 7-6 (1), 1-6,
7-5 victory in the second round of the French Open on Wednesday night in a
thrill-a-minute contest befitting two women who both own four Grand Slam
titles.
“For sure, this match was really intense. Much more intense
for the second round than I ever expected. For sure, I’ll be more ready next
time,” Swiatek said. “Naomi played amazing tennis. … I’m happy that she’s back
and she’s playing well.”
For Swiatek, this extended her Roland Garros winning streak
to 16 matches as she pursues a third consecutive trophy at the clay-court
major. For Osaka, who cried when she left the court after letting a 5-2 lead in
the concluding set slip away, this amounted to a return to her big-hitting
best.
They went back-and-forth for nearly three hours as rain
loudly pelted the outside of the closed roof at Court Philippe Chatrier —
showers forced the postponements of 23 singles matches until Thursday — and a
riveted, if hardly full, crowd alternated their support between the two
players. Sometimes, spectators called out before a point was done, prompting
admonishment from chair umpire Aurélie Tourte during the match. And from
Swiatek afterward.
“Sometimes, under a lot of pressure, when you scream
something during the rally or right before the return, it’s really, really hard
to be focused,” Swiatek said. “The stakes are big and there is a lot of money
here to win. So losing a few points may change a lot. So please, guys, if you
can support us between the rallies but not during, that would be really, really
amazing.”
Osaka served for the victory at 5-3 in the final set, and
was a point away from winning, but she put a backhand into the net. Soon, when
Osaka missed another backhand, this one long, Swiatek finally converted a break
point on her 10th chance of that set, and they played on.
Maybe the lack of high-level matches caught up to Osaka,
because her mistakes continued to mount, including a double-fault that put
Swiatek in control 6-5. Swiatek, who has led the WTA rankings for nearly every
week since April 2022, then held serve one last time.
“I don’t necessarily feel like I regret anything,” Osaka
said.
Still, this was, without a doubt, Osaka’s top performance
since she returned to the tour in January after 15 months away while becoming a
mother. (Her daughter, who is 10 months old now, accompanied Osaka to Paris and
recently started walking.)
“I was watching Iga win this tournament last year, and I was
pregnant. It was just my dream to be able to play her,” Osaka said. “When I
kind of think of it like that, I think I’m doing pretty well. And I’m also just
trying not to be too hard on myself. I feel like I played her on her better
surface. I’m a hard-court kid, so I would love to play her on my surface and
see what happens.”
Because of the weather, only nine matches were completed
Wednesday, and winners included Coco Gauff, Ons Jabeur, Sofia Kenin, Carlos
Alcaraz, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev.
It’s been a few years since Osaka played this capably and
confidently, hammering big serves at up to 122 mph (197 kph) and imposing
groundstrokes. Her quick-strike capabilities were on full display: Osaka won 82
of the 139 points (59%) that lasted four strokes or fewer, and she finished
with a 54-37 advantage in total winners.
All of those familiar mannerisms were back, too. She turned
her back to Swiatek to reset between points, hopped in place, tugged at her
pink visor’s brim and slapped her palm on her thigh. Osaka celebrated points by
shaking a clenched fist and shouting “Come on!”
She grabbed nine of 10 games to dominate the second set and
lead 3-0 in the third. Then 4-1. Then 5-2.
As one ball or another would fly past Swiatek, zipped near a
corner or right at a line, she turned toward her guest box and shot a look of
confusion or concern in the direction of her coach and her sports psychologist.
“I felt for most of the match that I wasn’t really (in the)
here and now,” Swiatek said. “My mind was, like, playing around sometimes.”
She’s not used to this sort of one-way traffic coming
head-on in her direction. Normally, it’s Swiatek who is delivering lopsided
sets at a foe’s expense, especially on clay. She now has won her last 14
matches this month, with titles on the surface at Madrid and Rome — a clay
double no woman had done since Serena Williams in 2013.
But this marked a sudden return to the Osaka everyone came
to expect, match in and match out, back when she was at the height of her
powers, climbing atop the rankings and gathering two trophies apiece at the
U.S. Open and Australian Open from late 2018 to early 2021.
It was in May 2021 that Osaka withdrew from the French Open
before her second-round match, explaining that she experiences “huge waves of
anxiety” before speaking to the media and revealing she had dealt with
depression. She took time away from the tour for a mental health break, then
opted for another hiatus after her title defense at the U.S. Open a few months
later ended with a third-round loss.
She helped usher in a change in the way athletes, sports
fans and society at large understood the importance of mental health — and
prompted those in charge of various sports, including tennis, to take the issue
seriously and try to accommodate and protect them better.
Osaka entered with an 0-4 record on the red stuff against
opponents ranked in the top 10 and never has been past the third round at
Roland Garros. This also would have been her first win anywhere against a
top-10 opponent since January 2020.
Instead, though, it is Swiatek who moves on and continues
her bid to become the first woman with three championships in a row in Paris
since Justine Henin in 2007-09. AP