Iga Swiatek

Swiatek beat Coco Gauff, the 18-year-old American prodigy.

But Gauff did not give her support group much to cheer for in the early going, losing her serve in a hurry in the opening game with a series of errors and one very edgy double fault. She and partner Jessica Pegula will play in the women’s doubles final on Sunday against Kristina Mladenovic and Caroline Garcia of France. That French Open was played in the autumn after being postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. “When I came to the team in December, I said, ‘OK lets’s start with the strengths, not the weak points,’” Wiktorowski said. But Swiatek, nearly three years Gauff’s elder, has stormed to the front of the women’s game since then with her aggressive style, powerful package of skills and detail-oriented approach to training. Gauff, in her first Grand Slam singles final at age 18, sat in her chair courtside with tears streaming down her face after the defeat.

That's when the tears flowed, first during the Polish national anthem — Swiatek is the only player from that nation to win a Grand Slam singles title — and, ...

For now, Swiatek said, she felt she needed to keep all of her attention on tennis. Also key to Swiatek’s presence, and swiftly burgeoning aura, is her calmness on court. Gauff began the second set by breaking Swiatek for the only time, and then holding to go up 2-0. By the end, Gauff had more unforced errors, 23-16, and also fewer winners: 14 for her, 18 for Swiatek. Much like a chess player, which she is. Might this transform into a much closer contest?

On Saturday, Iga Swiatek beat Coco Gauff for her second French Open title. She has now won 35 matches in a row. What makes her so good?

"I kind of felt like the sky's the limit for me, so I feel more free right now," she said earlier this week. She reached the semifinals at the Australian Open and since then has been nothing short of perfect. But she knew exactly what she needed to do and was candid about her hopes for the future. "Hopefully we're going to see this final play out many, many times over the next 10 years, and hopefully this starts a little rivalry. "Also, I think the biggest change for me is going to be to be consistent. She was the fifth straight first-time major champion in the women's draw at Roland Garros, and she had seen other women have success but struggle to follow it up. She lost just eight games in total to Pegula and Daria Kasatkina, in the quarterfinals and semifinals. Swiatek had achieved modest success during her first year on tour in 2019, with a fourth-round appearance at Roland Garros and her first WTA final appearance, in Lugano. She was steadily ascending up the ranks. Much like this year, Swiatek stormed through the field -- allowing no opponent to win more than five games -- and took down top-seeded Simona Halep in just over an hour, 6-1, 6-2 in the fourth round. She faced Swiatek in the opening round and lasted just 54 minutes on court in a 6-2, 6-0 rout. Swiatek dropped just one set -- to 19-year-old Qinwen Zheng in the fourth round -- en route to the final. "She's kind of hit another level than all of us right now," said Jessica Pegula, who lost to Swiatek in the quarterfinals.

Tennis - French Open - Roland Garros, Paris, France - June 4, 2022 Poland's Iga Swiatek in action during the women's singles final match against Cori Gauff ...

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The 21-year-old extended her 35-match unbeaten streak and captured her second Grand Slam trophy in Paris in commanding fashion.

Today, though, she couldn’t overcome her nerves and couldn’t overcome the opponent. She was the older player and the favorite. For six rounds, the 18-year-old American was a real star of the tournament, as she won a half dozen matches without dropping a set and revealed herself to be both a complete player and a complete person. She was the one with the win streak. She was the higher seed. This marked the 35th straight win, dating back to February, and the sixth consecutive title for Świątek, yet another indication that she is simply at another plane from the rest of the field.

Saturday's game, between Świątek and Coco Gauff, provided a chance to glimpse potential greats at the beginning of their careers.

Gauff secured one last hold before Świątek held to win—and quickly set off to clamber up to her player’s box to hug her dad, her coach, her sports psychologist, and the rest of her team. She can hit it in any direction with deft disguise, and she can hit it with depth, wherever she happens to be on the court. The match left Gauff in tears and Świątek with a thirty-five-match winning streak, tied (with Venus Williams) for the longest on the women’s tour this century, and tied with Sharapova for the youngest in this century to win two majors. But to glimpse potential greats at the beginning of their careers is among the most satisfying things on offer from sports. To watch Świątek just now is to see fresh tennis greatness, and she played the finest tennis of her two weeks in Paris during Saturday’s final: mixing up her serves; returning aggressively; creating, with tactical savvy, yards of open court to strike winners into; finding the lines on the big points, again and again. Gauff broke Świątek’s serve to begin the second set, then held to go up 2–love. Świątek calmly won the next five games. In the sixth game of the first set, with Gauff having held for the first time in the previous game, Świątek closed out a hold of her own with two searing forehands, the first struck crosscourt, the second inside out to Gauff’s backhand corner. But Gauff has real problems with getting her spacing and balance right on the forehand side—she’s often crowding the ball, or stretching for it, when she is hitting on the run, or not stepping into it fully even when she seems to have time to set herself and smack away. Junior finals at the French Open are not held on the big show court, Philippe-Chatrier, and they are scheduled on days when the main-draw finals are being played and the focus of fans is there. They’d reached the women’s final on different trajectories. Junior finals get the attention of players’ parents, of coaches, of sponsors and potential sponsors. Gauff won the French Open girls’ final four years ago by defeating her friend and fellow-American, Caty McNally. McNally had reached the final by outlasting, in a tight, three-set semifinal, a sixteen-year-old Polish girl named Iga Świątek. COVID has done strange things to our sense of time passing; somehow, depending on our mood and the memory we’re seeking to summon, 2018 can seem like long ago or yesterday—we’ll need a Proust to help us navigate our recollections of the pandemic epoch.