French Open: Swiatek shocks favourite Halep to reach quarterfinals
Paris: Polish teenager Iga Swiatek shocked top seed and 2018 champion Simona Halep to reach the Roland Garros quarterfinals where she will face Italian qualifier Martina Trevisan as the tournament took another dramatic twist on Sunday.
Swiatek, just 19 and ranked 54 in the world, triumphed 6-1, 6-2 on the back of 30 winners and not allowing 2018 winner Halep a single break point.
“I am surprised I could do this,” admitted Swiatek after ending the 17-match winning streak of Halep who was the overwhelming favourite in the absence of 2019 champion Ashleigh Barty and US Open winner Naomi Osaka and the injury-enforced withdrawal of Serena Williams.
It was a stunning turnaround for the Pole who won just one game against Halep at the same stage in Paris last year, getting swept off court in just 45 minutes.
Swiatek swept through the opening set in just 23 minutes, firing 17 winners to Halep’s four. The teenager tightened her grip, breaking in the first game of the second set with Halep having to fight off four break points in the third game to stay afloat.
Swiatek’s assault continued against a player who arrived in Paris with claycourt titles in Prague and Rome. Halep, 29, saved five more break points in the fifth game but a weary forehand drifted wide and her Polish opponent was 4-1 up with the cushion of a double break. She took victory on a second match point, ending the tie in 68 minutes.
Swiatek’s victory was quickly followed by another surprise when Trevisan registered a 6-4, 6-4 victory over fifth seed Kiki Bertens, a semi-finalist in 2016. The 26-year-old Trevisan, ranked 159, is the first qualifier to make the last eight since Yaroslava Shvedova in 2012.
Sunday’s early shocks mean that only four seeds remain in the women’s draw – third seed Elina Svitolina, fourth-seeded Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin, two-time Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova, seeded at seven, and Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur, the 30th seed.
Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem take great leaps into the unknown when they tackle opponents ranked outside the top 200 for places in the quarterfinals. Second seed Nadal, the 12-time champion, faces world number 213 Sebastian Korda whose father Petr was runner-up in 1992. World number three and US Open champion Thiem, runner-up to Nadal for the last two years, meets Hugo Gaston, ranked at 239.
Korda, 14 years younger than 19-time Slam winner Nadal, admits that he was in awe of the great Spaniard growing up.
Austrian Thiem, like Nadal, has reached the last 16 without dropping a set and is looking to make the quarter-finals for a fourth successive year. Should Nadal defeat Korda and register his 97th win in Paris, he will face either German sixth seed Alexander Zverev or 19-year-old Jannik Sinner of Italy who is the youngest man in the last 16 since Novak Djokovic in 2006.
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