Iga Swiatek wins fourth French Open crown, surpassing Serena Williams’ legacy – NBC Los Angeles

Iga Swiatek is rapidly turning into the Queen of Clay. 

The 23-year-old Pole gained her fourth French Open crown on Saturday, defeating Italian rising star Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 6-1.

The win places Swiatek because the top-5 winningest girls’s participant to seize the title in Paris, surpassing Serena Williams, and Monica Seles, amongst others. The present document holder is Chris Evert with seven.

Whereas Swiatek’s street to successful the 2024 championship was comparatively clean, she needed to face one large hurdle within the second spherical towards former Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka. Swiatek discovered herself down a match level towards hard-hitting Osaka however discovered a option to take house the win in three tight units.

“I used to be virtually out of the event within the second spherical so thanks guys for staying behind my again and cheering for me,” Swiatek stated after the win. “I additionally wanted to imagine that this one was going to be attainable. It has been a really emotional event so thanks for supporting me.” 

Because the Osaka conflict, Swiatek has cruised previous spectacular opponents, solely dropping two video games within the Spherical of 16 and quarterfinals. Within the semifinals, she downed American Coco Gauff convincingly to guide her third straight French Open remaining.

Here is only one different indication of how dominant Swiatek is on clay: She added this triumph to these on the gradual floor at Madrid and Rome final month, turning into the primary lady to win all three occasions since Serena Williams did it in 2013.

Throughout Saturday’s postmatch ceremony, Swiatek was flanked by a pair of ladies who every gained 18 Grand Slam singles titles, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. Evert stated earlier than this French Open that she thinks Swiatek might ultimately surpass her girls’s document of seven championships in Paris.

Swiatek will carry her momentum to the grass courts of London the place she would be the No. 1 seed in singles play at Wimbledon. Her greatest outcome up to now on the All England Membership was in 2023, reaching the quarterfinals. She did, nevertheless, win the junior Wimbledon singles title in 2018.

Paolini, however, additionally has quite a lot of momentum to hold into the grass court docket swing. The world No. 15 will discover herself ranked within the prime 10 when the brand new rankings come out on Monday.

However her job on the French Open just isn’t achieved but. She’s going to compete within the doubles remaining with companion Italy’s Sara Errani on Sunday towards 2023 U.S. Open singles champion Coco Gauff and Katerina Siniakova.

Following the doubles remaining, the lads’s singles remaining will characteristic Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev. The French Open remaining airs reside on NBC and Peacock from Roland Garros in Paris at 9 a.m. ET. The match can even stream on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports activities app.

The Related Press contributed to this story