Eurosport expert Mats Wilander has said that Iga Swiatek’s second-round scare against Naomi Osaka was “a wake-up call” for the world No. 1 en route to her fourth French Open title. The Pole saved a match point when down 5-2 against the Japanese player, being forced into a tense deciding third set which she eventually won 7-5. She beat the Italian Jasmine Paolini in the final on Saturday 6-2 6-1.
Eurosport expert Mats Wilander has said that Iga Swiatek’s narrow three-set victory over Naomi Osaka in the second round was “a wake-up call” for the French Open champion.
Swiatek clinched her fourth Roland-Garros title on Saturday with a straight-sets win over Jasmine Paolini on Court Philippe-Chatrier, but she was a point away from being knocked out in the second round by former world No. 1 Naomi Osaka.
The Pole saved a match point at 5-2 down before beating the Japanese player in the decider 7-6(1) 1-6 7-5.
That left Eurosport pundit Wilander to point to that encounter as a “wake-up call” for Swiatek, who proceeded to steam-roll her other opponents to secure a fifth Grand-Slam title.
“Iga against Naomi Osaka, that was unbelievable,” Wilander said.
“It was raining cats and dogs for seven days, and then we had this unbelievable drama. I never thought Osaka was going to be able to do this [on] clay. That’s never been a surface that she’s very good at. You can’t just do that if you’re not that good.
“She’s playing great, Osaka, and she can bother Iga on a clay court. That’s hard to do, and will give her a lot of confidence. For Iga, it was a wake-up call, definitely. This is the way the ladies are going to try and play her. She’s going to win most of them, still.”
Swiatek’s coach Tomasz Wiktorowski has said that her second-round match with Osaka “gave some perspective” to the world No. 1 after she was so nearly knocked out prematurely.
Wiktorowski, who previously coached former world No. 2 Agnieszka Radwanska for seven years, believed that Swiatek’s scare had given her the confidence to go on and retain her Roland-Garros title.
“It’s been an incredible journey for us,” the Polish coach exclusively told Eurosport’s Alex Corretja.
“Three two-week tournaments in seven weeks plus Stuttgart, I was like, ‘Wow, we’ve been given a crazy plan,’ but we knew somebody did it before us, so we knew that it was possible. I’m super proud of all my team and Iga especially.
“I’m not sure if [the Osaka match] helped, but it gave some perspective that it was not going to be easy. She passed through the match, defended the match point, and she made it.
“It gave some confidence and some perspective to us that we need to do something a bit more because that was the second round and that was a super tight and tough match. Maybe it helped, maybe not. I’m just happy that we’re here today. That was a big match, that’s for sure.
“Third
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...
“Defending behind the baseline, that was tough to adjust [to] at the beginning for Iga. That’s why she lost that service game, but she found her tactic for this match, and she got loose[r] when she lost that game. Then everything went in the right direction. This is the drill, learn and keep improving.”
You can watch every day of the 2024 French Open live and on-demand on discovery+
