Iga Swiatek navigated her way into the third round of the French Open on Wednesday with a 6-2, 6-3 success over world number 35 Sara Bejlek.
The four-time Roland Garros champion is seeking to reclaim the title she won three times consecutively between 2022 and 2024, before losing out at the semi-final stage to top seed Aryna Sabalenka last season.
Swiatek, 24, has recently teamed up with Rafael Nadal’s former coach Francisco Roig and has been preparing for the clay-court Grand Slam at the Spanish great’s tennis academy in Mallorca.
“I spent a week in Mallorca, which is amazing, because starting the clay-court season there gave me a lot of motivation,” Swiatek said on court.
After a comfortable opening win in Paris against Australian wildcard Emerson Jones, the Pole faced a tougher challenge in the round of 64 against Abu Dhabi winner Bejlek.
“She has a tricky style of game… she mixes up the rhythm quite well,” Swiatek added of her 20-year-old opponent, who she played for the first time.
With a slight blustering wind creeping across centre court, which the sun-drenched spectators doubtless appreciated, both players struggled on serve initially with three consecutive breaks in the early exchanges.
Swiatek then looked to have firmly gained the upper hand from the baseline but Bejlek battled to stay with the former world number one and saved a set point to break back to 5-2 — Swiatek finishing that game with back-to-back double faults.
But the diminutive Czech’s own service problems came back to bite her as Swiatek broke for the fourth time to claim the opener.
Swiatek held serve to claim a mammoth opening game in the second frame as both women found their range with their groundstrokes.
But Swiatek proved the more powerful of the two as she broke in the next game before moving through the rest of the set to book her last-32 berth, despite dropping serve two times.
There she will meet either fellow former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko or compatriot Magda Linette.
Meanwhile, former Olympic champion Belinda Bencic also reached the third round of the French Open after the Swiss beat American Caty McNally 6-4 6-0 on Wednesday.
Bencic, a two-times Grand Slam semifinalist, has never gone beyond the third round of the Paris major
Source: Khaleej Times