Throughout the course of a season in which she has won the second major of her career at Roland Garros, risen to world No 1 and compiled the longest winning streak the women’s game has seen this century, aggression has been the linchpin of Iga Swiatek’s success. In Warsaw, where she was defeated 6-1, 1-6, 6-4 in the quarter-finals of the Poland Open by Caroline Garcia, aggression proved Swiatek’s undoing as she was overpowered by a rival at the peak of her powers.
Perhaps the only thing more surprising than Swiatek suffering her first defeat on a clay court in 18 matches was that she was able to live with Garcia for as long as she did. This was a magnificent, all-court display by the free-swinging Frenchwoman, the biggest win of her career not only by ranking but perhaps also by performance.
It was also Garcia’s 16th success in 19 outings, a sequence that began in Bad Homburg, where she won her first title in three years, and continued with runs to the fourth round of Wimbledon and, over the past fortnight, the semi-finals in Lausanne and the last eight in Palermo. It has been an impressive body of work, lifting the former world No 4 from her lowest ebb in eight years – which came in May, when she slipped to 79th on the rankings ladder – to a more respectable 45th.
For Swiatek, whose focus will now turn to the North American hard-court swing and a tilt at a first US Open title, the ramifications of defeat are unlikely to range far beyond disappointment at a failure to go deeper on her first appearance at her hometown event. Swiatek’s team will nevertheless have noted with alarm the withering contempt with which Garcia treated her service, a shot that has been much improved under Tomasz Wiktorowski, the experienced coach with whom she began working at the end of last season. The abiding image of the match will be of Garcia smoking return winners from several feet inside the baseline – off forehand or backhand, first or second serve – that left Swiatek stunned, and the Warsaw crowd silenced.
Even when the world No 1 was able to get a play on the ball, the depth and weight of her opponent’s returns was such that she frequently struggled merely to put them back in court. At one point early in the decider, Swiatek was reduced to a despairing skyward prod as an umpteenth cannonball landed at her ankles. It summed up her afternoon.
Garcia’s commitment to attack was equally apparent behind her own delivery, which regularly touched speeds in excess of 115mph, and which she backed up with the kind of sharp, accomplished net play one might expect from a woman with two French Open doubles titles to her name.
“I started very strong, putting a lot of pressure on her,” said the fifth-seeded Garcia, who signalled her intentions by blasting three forehand return winners to secure an early break.
“As soon as I got a bit lower-intensity, she came back very strong, and that’s what happens against a top player. I stayed positive, I kept believing in my game and the way I wanted to play, and the third set was definitely very good tennis.”
Strange to say, but Swiatek, who was the victim of a similarly inspired display by Alizé Cornet in the third round of Wimbledon, has now lost two of her past four competitive outings. Normally so composed, she cut an increasingly frustrated figure here, kicking the clay in disgust as the first set slipped away, angrily swatting away a ball early in the second, and swishing her racket in annoyance as Garcia’s bold shot-making continued down the stretch. By the final game, where she was broken for the fifth time after holding a point to level at 5-5, she was reduced to shouting at her team.
For all Garcia’s brilliance, Swiatek was to some extent complicit in her own downfall. Despite improving her first-serve percentage from 68% in the first set to 75% in the second – where she made just one unforced error – the Pole persisted with her preferred tactic of slicing the first serve wide to the deuce court. That played firmly into the hands of Garcia, who was invariably waiting to rip the ball crosscourt. It was notable that one of Swiatek’s few aces came from a rare change of direction.
Swiatek’s reluctance to vary her placement contributed to a series of tight service games in the decider, where she was required to save a pair of early break points before twice being pegged back after holding game points. The pressure finally told in the eighth game, where Garcia drilled a winning return to lead 5-3. Defiant to the last, Swiatek broke back immediately, but she was unable to prevent the Frenchwoman from joining Ashleigh Barty, Danielle Collins, Jelena Ostapenko and Cornet as one of only five players to prevail against her this year.