Iga Swiatek Marches to Third Straight French Open Title The 23-year-old from Poland swept aside Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 6-1, to become a four-time champion at Roland-Garros and a five-time major winner

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 Iga Swiatek hadn’t yet taken the court for the French Open women’s final when she was asked how many more of these titles she could win.

Specifically, the world No. 1 from Poland was being compared with another seemingly unstoppable force on clay courts, the 14-time French Open men’s champion Rafael Nadal.
“We’ll see in 14 years,” she replied.
But the way Swiatek is going, she’s on the right track to reach Nadal’s rarefied atmosphere. On Saturday, she dispatched No. 12 seed Jasmine Paolini of Italy quicker than a café croque-madame, 6-2, 6-1, to claim her third consecutive crown here. At age 23, she is now a four-time French Open winner and five-time major champion. The only other man or woman with four wins in Paris at that age is—you guessed it—Nadal.
The victory, which took just 1 hour and 8 minutes, put Swiatek in elite company. Only Monica Seles and Justine Henin had pulled off three seats here before her. And the only two women with more career titles at Roland-Garros remain Steffi Graf with six and Chris Evert with seven.
Italy’s Jasmine Paolini played in her first career major final. PHOTO: ALAIN JOCARD/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Swiatek’s five Grand Slams also make her the active leader on the women’s tour, ahead of Naomi Osaka with four. (While seven-time major winner Venus Williams hasn’t technically retired, she’s barely present on the circuit anymore.) The question now is how quickly she can add to that tally. Swiatek has proven herself on hard courts by winning the 2022 U.S. Open, but she has yet to wrap herself around the grass game. Her deepest run at Wimbledon remains in the quarterfinals.
On clay, however, Swiatek remains close to untouchable. Paolini, whose game revolves around powerful groundstrokes and tireless defense, learned that the hard way after going toe-to-toe with her in the first three games. One minute, Paolini was leading 2-1 and up a break and before she knew it, Swiatek had reeled off five straight games to take the opening set 6-2.
On clay, Iga Swiatek remains close to untouchable. PHOTO: ALAIN JOCARD/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Which isn’t to say Paolini did much wrong in her first Grand Slam final. She took an aggressive approach and trusted her serve. Yet Swiatek’s demoralizing accuracy allowed her to dictate the match. She hit 17 winners to Paolini’s 7 and never softened her laser focus.
The way Swiatek plowed through the second week here, it was easy to forget that back in the second round she had needed to save a match point against Naomi Osaka.  As it turned out, that three-set slugfest was the only time that Swiatek was ever remotely in trouble here.
After that brief scare, her focus returned and it proved unshakable. Swiatek, who dropped just 17 games in her final five matches here, said she was so locked in that she occasionally forgot the score—even as she knocked out two players ranked in the world’s top six.
But by the final, plenty of people were around to remind Swiatek who was in charge of this French Open. And on Saturday, she had some silverware to help too.



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