Iga Swiatek had to navigate a slightly trickier test than she is accustomed to in Grand Slam first rounds, coming from 3-1 down in the second set to open her Roland Garros title defense with a 6-3, 6-3 defeat of Rebecca Sramkova.
“I didn’t really think about [the Australian Open] match, honestly,” Swiatek said after defeating Sramkova. “I was thinking about our Stuttgart match, and I think we played another time on clay after — I’m not sure. I’m not good at that. But I don’t really take a lot from that except the experience and … knowing how she plays.
“But Melbourne and Roland Garros [are] totally different surfaces, different stories. I’ll prepare tactically as I should before a clay court match, and that’s it.”
The result extended four-time champion Swiatek’s winning streak at Roland Garros to 22, and her winning streak in WTA tournament opening matches to 60. Her last losses in both came to Maria Sakkari in the 2021 Roland Garros quarterfinals and 2021 WTA Finals Guadalajara round-robin respectively.
For the second major in a row, Iga Swiatek and Emma Raducanu will meet in the first week after Raducanu followed Iga Swiatek by overcoming Wang Xinyu 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 in a 2-hour, 44-minute thriller on Court 8.
In the third round of the Australian Open in January, Swiatek routed Raducanu 6-0, 6-1 in 1 hour and 10 minutes. The former World No. 1 has yet to drop a set to Raducanu in four meetings. However, their closest meetings have both come on clay, in the Stuttgart quarterfinals in 2022 and 2024. On those occasions, Swiatek came through 6-4, 6-4 and 7-6(2), 6-3 respectively.
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