Swiatek wins 6-0 6-0 in 40 minutes to reach Paris quarters
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Image caption: Iga Swiatek has won 69 Grand Slam singles matches since 2020 – more than any other woman on tour
Iga Swiatek took just 40 minutes to register a crushing 6-0 6-0 win over Anastasia Potapova and reach the French Open quarter-finals.
The two-time defending champion showed why she is the overwhelming favourite for the title with a relentlessly dominant performance.
Top seed Swiatek won 48 points – against 10 won by world number 41 Potapova – and did not face a single break point.
It was the quickest win of Swiatek’s career – and the second shortest completed match at Roland Garros after Steffi Graf’s 32-minute triumph over Natasha Zvereva in the 1988 final.
“It went pretty quickly,” Swiatek said.
“I was really focused and in the zone. I wasn’t looking at the score, so I continued working on my game.”
She will face Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova next after the Czech ended Serb qualifier Olga Danilovic’s run in a 6-4 6-2 victory.
US Open winner Coco Gauff made light work of Italy’s Elisabetta Cocciaretto, winning 6-1 6-2 to set up a meeting with either Ons Jabeur or Clara Tauson.
The stats tell most of the story: Swiatek made just two unforced errors, won 94% of points behind her first serve and held to love five times.
She took the first set in 19 minutes and only showed frustration when she missed two break points on Potapova’s serve in the second set, before taking the third.
It was a far cry from her second-round match against fellow four-time major winner Naomi Osaka, where she had to save a match point before progressing in three tough sets.
Should she retain her title, Swiatek will be the first woman since Justine Henin in 2007 to win the French Open singles three times in a row.
Swiatek is on an 18-match win streak at Roland Garros, having not lost since the 2021 quarter-finals.
She is also on a 16-match winning streak on clay courts this season, having claimed big titles in Madrid and Rome before arriving in Paris.
Slam champions Gauff & Vondrousova progress
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Image caption: Coco Gauff is playing in singles and doubles at the French Open
Fifth seed Vondrousova, who stunned Jabeur to win Wimbledon last year, has form at Roland Garros, having lost out to Ashleigh Barty in the 2019 final.
She has had a mixed start to the year but did reach the semi-finals on the Stuttgart clay in the build-up to Roland Garros.
She recovered from going an early breakdown against Danilovic and saved four of the five break points she faced on her way to victory.
Gauff is also a former finalist at Roland Garros, having finished runner-up to the ever-dominant Swiatek in 2021.
Unlike many American players, Gauff has had plenty of experience of clay, having won the Roland Garros girls’ title as a junior in 2018.
She put all her experience to use against Cocciaretto, who had heavy strapping on her leg and looked to be feeling the effects of reaching the second week of a major for the first time.
Third seed Gauff moved well and played with some excellent control, breaking early in both sets and shaking off five double faults to close out victory in 60 minutes.
“I’m lucky – I’ve been able to train on clay since I was 10 years old, which is not common for Americans,” Gauff said.
“I like to slide and sometimes I do surprise myself.”