With the French Open just over a month away, Iga Swiatek remains the player to beat on clay.
Last month, when she stumbled to a third defeat of the season in Indian Wells before withdrawing from the Miami Open with a rib injury, there was a suggestion of vulnerability about the Polish world No 1. On Sunday in Stuttgart, where she won an intense, absorbing final against Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 6-4, Swiatek exposed that impression as a mirage.
It was a statement performance from the two-time French Open champion, who completed her defence of a title she lifted on her debut last year for the loss of just a single set, against Karolina Pliskova in the quarter-finals. Even there, the 21-year-old recovered from a shaky start to prevail in emphatic style, conceding just three games after dropping the opener, and while we shall never know what might have happened had Ons Jabeur not sustained a calf injury after just three points of their semi-final, Swiatek was at her best against Sabalenka, weathering sustained early pressure from the Belarusian before breaking her serve and, ultimately, her spirit.
“There are a lot of emotions,” said Swiatek, whose joy after her 13th title win was palpable as she cavorted around the court, punching the air.
“I wanted to win really, really hard, but I knew that I can’t really focus on that and just I have to keep doing my job as I did in previous matches. I’m pretty happy that I could have a good mentality and just focus on what I want to do tennis-wise.”
For Sabalenka, a third defeat in the final in three years was difficult to stomach. Her disappointment was plain as she retreated to the stands, stony-faced, to sit with her team in the aftermath of her loss. The Australian Open champion had defeated Swiatek when they last met, at the WTA Finals in November, but at an event where the winner receives a Porsche Taycan Turbo S Sport Turismo, the Pole was in the driving seat from the eighth game, where she smoked a forehand return winner off a second serve to claim the first break of the match.
For all her frustration, Sabalenka soon returned to the court, her engaging smile returning too as she joked: “Can I make a deal if I make another final, I just get an extra car? I’m really tired of playing the final and leaving this tournament without the car.” The world No 2’s loss was Tomasz Swiatek’s gain, with the champion’s father set to receive the keys to a vehicle that his daughter drove off the courtside rostrum with no little zest. Swiatek, it would seem, drives very much like Sabalenka plays tennis – with the pedal firmly to the metal.
Predictably, the Pole’s victory hinged largely on her ability to resist that power, which she managed partly through her exceptional movement and defensive skills, partly with her ability to absorb and deflect the Belarusian’s relentless barrage of thunderbolt serves and huge groundstrokes. There was purpose and patience behind Sabalenka’s potency, the world No 2 choosing her moments to pull the trigger as she combined clever changes of direction off the backhand with short angles that pulled Swiatek beyond the alley and created space for her to deliver the killer blow.
Even through the gladiatorial opening exchanges, however, it was Swiatek who looked the likelier to fashion a first break. Sabalenka needed nine minutes to navigate her way through a difficult opening service game, fending off a break point with a deep, ferocious forehand, and serving at 3-4 she found herself in trouble again as Swiatek pulled off an astonishing act of retrieval, lunging wide to her left to put up a high defensive lob. As Sabalenka allowed the ball to bounce, it looked impossible that she could miss – but miss she did, finding the net to give her opponent another break point. Sabalenka saw off the initial danger with a crunching first serve, but it gave Swiatek the platform for two more opportunities, the second of which she converted.
From there, Swiatek served out the set with aplomb before a double-fault cost Sabalenka the opening game of the second set. Despite continuing to push Swiatek hard in the second set, where she sent a return long on her only break point of the match, it was a blow from which she would not recover.
“I think a couple of times I didn’t play my best on my serve,” said Sabalenka. “That’s what the key moments [were].”
With Rome and Roland Garros still to come, Swiatek has now defended her Qatar and Stuttgart titles, two of the six she won during last year’s 37-match winning streak, as well as reaching the semi-finals of another. Reports of her vulnerability have been greatly exaggerated and, having defended her title on an indoor clay court that she finds faster than she would like, she will head to the Madrid Open secure in the knowledge that, a year after inheriting the No 1 ranking from the retired Ashleigh Barty, she has more than lived up to her status as the world’s best player.
“I’m just pretty proud of my consistency, because when I was consistent on another level [last year], it was nice, but this level is over my expectations even,” said Swiatek, who will face Britain’s Emma Raducanu in her opener in Madrid if the former US Open champion survives the first round.
“I felt like this season may be tough, because of what people are saying and expectations from the outside.
“I’m happy that I managed to work through it. That was probably the biggest [challenge], the biggest thing that I had to go through at the beginning of the year. Now I feel like I just can use my experience a little bit more, more than worry about stuff.”
For those with aspirations of seizing Swiatek’s French Open crown, that is likely to spell trouble.