Roland Garros, Iga Swiatek trembles but then folds a reborn Naomi Osaka

Roland Garros, Iga Swiatek trembles but then folds a reborn Naomi Osaka

In a second round that was as good as a final of any Grand Slam tournament, Poland’s world number 1 Iga Swiatek beat with a score of 7-6 1-6 7-5 Japan’s Naomi Osaka, who was number 1 herself but who has now dropped to 134 after maternity leave but also after two years of various problems that also made her temporarily step away from tennis. In the next round, Iga will face the winner between Czech Marie Bouzkova and Croatian Jana Fett, with the former leading by a set before the rain interruption.

The two protagonists canceled a break point each in the first two games, then on’1-1 è Osaka lost her serve: Swiatek went 3-1 and 4-2 but then was remounted on 4-4. Here the world number 1 does not exploit a break point but in the next game è she has to cancel a set point. It goes to the tie-break and Iga dominates it by flying to 4-0 and winning it 7-1.

The second set sees only one tennis player on the court.Naomi goes up 4-0 and Swiatek holds serve only once out of four losing it a third time at 5-1.Thus the match, which the Japanese player could have won in two sets, is stretched to the third. The beginning of the decisive partial è incredible: Naomi saves three break points in the first game recovering from 15-40 and five in the third game saving herself from 0-40 and instead è she makes the break in the second game anulling three balls of the 1-1 to Swiatek.

The Japanese then has a 5-1 ball but misses it by misplaying a long backhand, on 5-2 she goes 0-30 but Iga recovers. On 5-3 30-15 Naomi nets a wide-open forehand, concedes a break ball, saves it, goes her to match point but the Pole cancels it and then misses two backhands that cost her the counterbreak. From this moment the match è virtually turned, Osaka on 5-5 loses another serve and Iga takes home an incredible victory after 2 hours and 57 minutes of epic and cruel battle.