Agency :
World No 1 Iga Swiatek blasted into her second Roland Garros final after a comfortable 6-2, 6-1 win over 20th seed Daria Kasatkina on Thursday, setting up the showdown against American teenager Coco Gauff in the final on Saturday.
The 18-year-old Gauff reached her first Grand Slam singles final with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over Italy’s unseeded player Martina Trevisan in another semifinal on Court Philippe-Chatrier.
Top-seeded Swiatek extended her stunning winning streak to 34 matches after the semifinal, only one win from the 21st-century record made by retired American player Venus Williams in 2020.
“I’m even more happy with the performance than after the previous match because I feel like my game is getting more and more solid. I can really loosen up when I’m getting advantage and when I’m having a break, so that’s great,” said Swiatek.
The polish went into the semifinal strongly, as she did in her previous matches at this year’s claycourt major, converting the breakpoint at her opponent’s first serve.
Although Kasatkina responded quickly with another break to level the score 2-2, the match went into the hand of the top seed in the rest as she won 10 of the next 11 games to wrap up the victory in just over one hour.
The 2020 champion fired 22 winners to only ten from her Russian opponent, who however committed 24 unforced errors, more than double as her unstoppable rival did.
“It seemed kind of obvious for me that the streak may come to an end soon. So I just wanted to take it really step by step,” Swiatek said of her winning streak.
The 21-year-old pole has won 54 of her past 56 sets as only Liudmila Samsonova and Zheng Qinwen have managed to clinch a set from her since the fourth round of Indian Wells in March.
No 18 seed Gauff halted the fairytale of Italian player Trevisan, who came to Roland Garros with a 59th world ranking.
Gauff lost to Trevisan in their only previous meeting, a tight three-setter in the second round of Roland Garros in 2020, when the Italian first went on to make the quarterfinals.
With two WTA singles titles under her name, Gauff went into the 2022 season with a slow start, suffering a first-round exit at the Australian Open to Chinese player Wang Qiang. Her best result this year before the French Open was in Doha in February, where she went all the way in the quarterfinals before losing to Maria Sakkari of Greece.
“(The final) definitely means a lot. I’m so happy, and definitely-I wasn’t expecting it. I’m going to be honest. This year I hadn’t had the best results going into this. So it wasn’t expected at all, ” said Gauff, who is the youngest Grand Slam finalist since Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon in 2004.
The opening six games saw the pair trade service breaks twice, Gauff won nine of the last 10 games in the 68-minute victory and snapped Trevisan’s 10-match winning streak.
Gauff won three straight games to wrap up the opener in which she won 12 of the last 14 points.
“Today I think I played probably the best I could, ” Gauff said. “I think we were both kind of shaky in the first couple games, had a lot of early unforced errors, but after that, it was smooth sailing from there.”
Swiatek has encountered Gauff twice as the Polish took the victories of both. The recent one was in the round of 16 at this year’s Miami Open, when Swiatek beat the home favorite in straight sets 6-3, 6-1.
