Iga on a mission at Paris 2024
This is what we call assuming one's status. Iga Swiatek, favourite to win the women’s singles event at Paris 2024, stepped up her power on Monday to despatch Diane Parry in front of a Philippe Chatrier crowd that rallied to the Frenchwoman's cause.
After a strong start, the boss of women's tennis lost just two games and flew to an inevitable victory 6-1 6-1 in an hour and 14 minutes.
The four-time Roland Garros champion broke Parry to love in the opening game, and was particularly accurate from the baseline, with just four unforced errors on her forehand and backhand in the first set. Swiatek took advantage of Parry’s tension to win the first set in 38 minutes, but loudly encouraged by the French fans, Parry held serve and saved four set points to delay the result.
This was a ray of sunshine for the Frenchwoman before the clouds returned, blown in by the power and determination of Swiatek as she raced to an overall victory, hitting 15 winners on the way.
Iga in cruise control 🛳️
— ITF (@ITFTennis) July 29, 2024
The 95th 6-1 set of her career puts her in a commanding position to sail through to R3#Paris2024 #Tennis #Olympics pic.twitter.com/OhIDyNBnVF
Swiatek was imperious on her serve, offering no break points, and she was also suffocating on her returns, winning 57% of points on Parry’s serve.
"I think it's a solid performance, better than my first round," she said. “I'm happy that I was able to play my game more. I can play in any conditions, but you have to adapt a bit, change tactics, and I think I did that pretty well today."
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We could almost forget because of her incredible dominance and the size of her trophy cabinet, but the Pole only turned 23 in May and is competing in her second Olympic Games.
At Tokyo 2020 she was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles with Hubert Hurkacz, and in the second round of the women's singles by Paula Badosa. So Swiatek has already done better in singles this time around, playing in a place which must feel like her back garden.
After a solid but probably more difficult start than expected against Irina-Camelia Begu in the first round, this was the match where Iga became Iga again. She stays in the race to become the second player in history to win Roland Garros and the Olympic Games in the same year after Steffi Graf in 1988.
This is very bad news for her competitors, starting with China’s Xiyu Wang, who defeated Diana Shnaider on Monday morning to book a third-round meeting with Swiatek.