Iga Sventek advances to Roland Garros semi-finals

At the French Open Tennis Championship, which continues in Paris, all participants in the women’s semi-finals have been determined. Belarusian Arina Sobolenko and Czech Karolina Muchova, who reached this stage on Tuesday, were joined by the first racket of the world, two-time (2020, 2022) winner of this tournament, Pole Iga Sventek, who dealt with American Coco Gauff in two games, and Brazilian Beatrice Addad Maya, who in Three sets broke the resistance of Uns Jabir from Tunisia. From the courts of Roland Garros – the correspondent of “Kommersant” Yevgeny Fedyakov.

For WTA ranking leader Iga Sventek, this season has not been as successful as the previous one, when she looked two heads stronger than all its competitors. Of the five tournaments that she won last year from February to mid-May, she managed to defend titles in only two – in Doha and Stuttgart.

True, Shventek loses only to selected rivals. Three of the six defeats since January, she was inflicted by last year’s Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina from Kazakhstan, who withdrew from the current tournament due to illness, and one each by the winner of the Australian Open 2023 Belarusian Arina Sabolenko, who has a chance to displace Shventek from 1st place, the victorious Roland Garros 2021 Czech Barbora Krejcikova and world number three American Jessica Pegula. It is indicative that three of them won one Grand Slam tournament each, and Pegula, of course, is one of the world’s elite.

As for the rest of the tennis players, Shventek understands them very easily. This year, she has already taken 13 sets to zero, which is a unique indicator.

Four of these “dry” games fall on the current Roland Garros, and in the third round the Chinese player Wang Xinyu did not lose a single game at all. Therefore, although at the quarterfinal stage the polka got the same American Coco Gauff, who played with her in the final last year, there were no clear prerequisites for a sensation. Yes, and the score of personal meetings between Sventek and Gauff was 6:0, and almost all of their previous matches took place with the overwhelming advantage of the polka.

Surprise, of course, did not happen. Gauff made Schwentek tense up just a little bit. If 12 months ago the case was limited to only four games won by an American tennis player, now there are six such games. Sventek won – 6:4, 6:2 in 1 hour 28 minutes. In total, her five matches at this Roland Garros lasted 5 hours and 32 minutes, during which she gave only 15 games.

By the time the two-time Roland Garros champion reached the semifinals again, her next opponent was already known.

And here a surprise happened, because in the confrontation between the ex-second racket of the world Uns Jabir from Tunisia and the Brazilian Beatriz Addad Maia, the chances of the African were quoted higher. Two victories in personal meetings spoke in her favor, and the fact that in four matches on the way to the quarterfinals, Addad Maya spent 10 hours and 28 minutes on the courts of Roland Garros. All the more surprising was her next, already fourth consecutive victory in the current tournament in three games – 3:6, 7:6 (7:5), 6:1 in 2 hours and 29 minutes. Jabir explained this result by her rival’s combativeness, as well as by the fact that she herself did not have time to fully recover from a calf injury she received in mid-April at the first clay tournament of the European series in Stuttgart.

For Brazil, the success of the 27-year-old Addad Maia is historic, as the last representative of this country in the semi-finals of Grand Slam tournaments was Maria Bueno back in 1968.

However, it will be very difficult for the South American tennis player to take another step along the grid, and it’s not just about the level of Schwentek’s game. Just if in previous circles Addad Maya had at her disposal two days to recover, now she will have only 24 hours to rest. After all, both women’s semi-finals – and in the other Arina Sobolenko and Czech Karolina Muchova will meet – will be held on Thursday.