The Italian final: Iga Świątek versus Ons Jabeur

Iga Świątek
Mal Taam/MALTphoto



Iga Świątek goes into the Rome final with 27 wins in a row. She is not only No.1, but now on the clay, she is crushing people day after day. Last year, who would have thought that she became not only very fast, but smarter. She can belt her forehands and her backhand, she can mix it up, and she can also return like a ghost.

In the semis in Italy, she totally crushed Aryna Sabalenka. She wiped her out 6-2, 6-1.

Świątek has won just one Grand Slam, at the 2020 Roland Garros, but she is now tied with Serena Williams, who also had 27 wins in a row. Świątek is not quite there — a long shot— because Martina Navratilova had 74 wins in a row back in 1984.

Who would have guessed that at the start of the year? Świątek is a little bit shocked. She has lost three matches in January and early February, against the now retired No. 1 Ashleigh Barty, Danielle Collins and Jelena Ostapenko. After that, she began to streak.

“I needed time to learn how to do that properly, how to use the streak or ranking to put pressure on my opponents. I feel like I’ve done that pretty well last season and this season at the beginning, just learning how to use it in a positive way,” Świątek said. “Last year when I had better ranking, it felt like it’s something that’s pressuring me down. This time it’s totally different. Also having Tomasz [Wiktorowski, a coach who worked Aga Radwanska for many years], who is so experienced, who has been working with top players already, it’s also really helpful. I feel like I can lean on them in that matter. I just wasn’t analyzing that much as I did in previous seasons, so it also helped.”

In the final, the rising Jabeur has finally improved a lot. The 27-year-old has been pretty decent, but she has been downcast. She does have a lot of shots, and she can run for a long time, but when she has a chance to bang it, she can become confused.

Then in April, she switched her approach and became so much more confident. She did more grinding, which helped her win in Madrid.
 
“Honestly I feel like I was playing better the other matches. Maybe today wasn’t the best,” Jabeur said. “Probably another test for me mentally, for sure. But to back up the performance from Madrid, it’s very important for me. It’s one of the reasons why I’m here, why I want to continue showing myself on the court. It’s part of maybe the journey. I told you I want to win a Grand Slam, so maybe I have to go through this to be able to win one Grand Slam. For now I’m doing it right. Different test from each match. Hopefully I can still continue.”

Świątek and Jabeur have played three times, with the Tunisian winning two times, and the Pole winning once.