Iga Swiatek wins thrilling Elena Rybakina duel at French Open after opening set rout

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The Athletic has live coverage from the 2025 French Open.

ROLAND GARROS, PARIS — Iga Świątek, a four-time champion at Roland Garros whose progress here tends to be so serene, was pushed to her limits Sunday in a thrilling 1-6, 6-3, 7-5 win over former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina at the French Open.

For the past three years, it has been hard to quantify just how good Świątek’s performances at the tournament have been, because of the obvious gulf in quality between her and her opponent even when some of them are her rivals at the very top of the sport. Świątek has not lost a match at this tournament in four years, and has rarely been troubled on her way to winning the last three French Opens.

Not so Sunday. While Rybakina’s results over the past year had not been brilliant until a recent surge in form, she can blast anyone off any court when she is playing near her peak. “The first set, I felt like I was playing against Jannik Sinner,” Świątek said in her on-court interview, after Rybakina had taken her racket out of her hands throughout the opening exchanges.

“I just kept fighting,” she said.

Świątek trailed by a set and a break, and having lost so many matches against red-lining opponents, she could have panicked. On Court Philippe-Chatrier, where she has been unbeatable the past four years, she refused to do so. Just as when she stared down a match point against Naomi Osaka last year, Świątek dug in and showed why she is the greatest clay-court player of the modern era. She was even able to shrug off the frustration of thinking she had secured a decisive break for 5-4 in the final set, only to be denied by a correct overrule from umpire Kader Nouni.

Having struggled with her footwork early on, Świątek came up clutch when she needed to, saving seven break points in a row at one stage. She’s into a quarterfinal against Elina Svitolina, and with little momentum coming into the tournament, she has the wind at her back. A semifinal against world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka looms on the horizon, and would reopen the rivalry everyone in women’s tennis wants to see.

“It means a lot,” Świątek said in a news conference of facing genuine jeopardy at Roland Garros and coming out the other side. “I think I needed that kind of win to feel these feelings that I’m able to win under pressure, and even if it’s not going the right way, still turn the match around to win it.

“I wanted to have a match like that. Obviously it’s great to also have full control over the match, but against great players, it’s not always going to be possible. I’m happy that I fought, and I also problem-solved on court.”

Świątek quickly found herself down 5-0 at the start of the match, bringing back worrying memories of recent defeats to Danielle Collins and Coco Gauff and even a win against Madison Keys in which she was taken apart in the opening set. Rybakina had a couple of points for a 6-0 set, which would have been Świątek’s first against her at Roland Garros since 2019, but the four-time champion just about clung on.

Świątek had spoken in the week about not chasing down balls during those defeats, and her footwork problems recurred on Chatrier. It was alarming to see her getting caught in her service motion time and again, struggling to stay balanced as Rybakina swung away.

Both players left the court at the end of the set, but it was Rybakina who benefited from the stoppage, raising her level even higher and breaking to love by rolling a backhand winner crosscourt and then sending a bruising forehand scudding down the line. The question was whether she could sustain the level, with Świątek needing a dip from her opponent to remain in the tournament.

It duly arrived not long after, when Rybakina netted a sitter of a volley to give up a break for 2-2. Rybakina pinpointed this as a key moment in her post-match news conference. She also spoke about struggling to maintain the intensity of the first set, because of how strong Świątek is physically and the demands she puts on her opponents to keep winning points.

Świątek also made a tactical adjustment after the first set, standing deeper to return the powerful Rybakina serve. She has rarely done this in the past, even when finding returning difficult, because, she said, she resists becoming too passive. The world No. 5 credited her coach Wim Fissette for pushing the idea: “I think the coaching actually really helped me today, because I wouldn’t have come up with this myself. Even though I practice it a little bit, it’s still a weird thing for me to do.”

After the gift of Rybakina’s missed volley, Świątek squeaked her way out of a game in which she double-faulted three times when up game point to hold for 3-2. Świątek’s dominance at Roland Garros has at times led to her matches being foregone conclusions, so much so that the entertainment value of her quality can get forgotten. Not so Sunday, as Rybakina pushed to her limits — Świątek secured another break by surfing into a forehand pass as only she can, going on a run of 11 straight points to flip a 2-0 deficit into a 5-2 lead, before winning the set 6-3.

After the surges and slumps of the first two sets, both players were playing at a good level at the same time at the start of the decider. Świątek was spearing forehands across the clay, while Rybakina replied in kind on her backhand, one in the fifth game so powerful that it sent Świątek’s racket flying out of her hand. To end that game, Świątek missed a volley into the net that was as simple as the one Rybakina missed to get broken in the second set. Furious with herself, she was at risk of losing her serve in the next game, but didn’t let it affect her.

It was Świątek who earned the first break of serve at 3-3, but Rybakina broke back immediately on another double fault from the Pole to level at 4-4.

In the next game, Świątek, and everyone in the stadium, thought she had broken again when a Rybakina second serve was called long down 15-40. The players even started walking to their chairs, but umpire Nouni came down off his to inspect the mark and called it in. Per the rules, Rybakina was given a first serve, and buoyed by the reprieve, she saved both break points and held for 5-4.

She couldn’t repeat the trick in the 11th game after Świątek got things to 5-5, and felt afterwards that: “I didn’t maybe risk it where I had to, and played a little bit passive in some important moments.” Świątek again got herself to 15-40 and this time took a 6-5 lead, before converting her second match point with a forehand crosscourt winner for a thrilling win, the kind which has eluded her in recent times.

Świątek had won 24 matches in a row at the French Open going into this one, tied with Justine Henin for the third-longest women’s streak in the Open Era. She has now equaled Monica Seles’ streak of 25, having gone into this fourth-round match, her 41st at the tournament, with a 38-2 record.

A defeat would have seen her be around No. 8 in the WTA Tour rankings going into Wimbledon, which begins June 30. That would have put her in line to face one of the world’s top four at the quarterfinal stage, although she has never gone beyond the quarterfinals at what is to date her least successful Grand Slam.

For Rybakina, this is her best performance at a Grand Slam since last year’s Wimbledon, when she reached the semifinals and was up a set before losing to eventual champion Barbora Krejčíková. Since then, her longtime coach Stefano Vukov has been suspended for one year by the WTA Tour, after an investigation found that he had breached its code of conduct by engaging in “abuse of authority and abusive conduct” toward Rybakina.

Rybakina, who has maintained that Vukov has never mistreated her, played some of her best tennis of the past year at this French Open, as she has done for most of the past month. She won her first title in over a year in Strasbourg, France in the run up to Roland Garros. On Court Philippe-Chatrier, she raised her level even higher against the four-time champion, and spoke afterwards of wanting to focus on the positives from the match and the tournament in general.

For Świątek, this was a victory to treasure in an at-times challenging year. “It’s a great confirmation for me that I can handle the pressure,” she said.

(Photo: Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP via Getty Images)

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