World number one Iga Swiatek shakes nerves early to enter French Open semi-final

World number one Iga Swiatek shrugged off her early nerves to extend her winning streak to a staggering 33 as she beat American Jessica Pegula 6-3 6-2 to book her place in the Roland semi-finals -Garros Wednesday. Swiatek, who turned 21 on Tuesday, is on the longest unbeaten streak on the women’s tour since Serena Williams won 34 games in 2013.

The Polish player, in search of a second title in three years at Roland Garros, appeared a little fragile during the first matches before passing the 11th seed to organize a meeting with the Russian Daria Kasatkina for a place in the final of Saturday. The 2020 champion is aiming to become the fourth player since 2000 to win the Suzanne Lenglen Cup multiple times after Justine Henin, Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova.

“She was playing really low so to be good I had to be low on my legs. That was key and I’m quite happy to play with good momentum to push her back a bit,” Swiatek said of a sunbather. . , yet swept by the wind from the Philippe Chatrier court. “Sometimes stress is a positive thing, it’s going to make you more active and tense so you can put on a good performance. So I tried to use it that way.”

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Two days after dropping his first set of the tournament, Swiatek got off to a fast start, stealing Pegula’s serve with a crosscourt forehand winner. But unforced errors immediately crept into her game and she was immediately broken and showed early signs of nervousness.

The Pole, however, broke again to lead 4-3 before holding and setting up set points in the ninth game. Pegula did him a favor by sending a routine forehand wide on the second. Another of those gave Swiatek a break for 3-1 in the second set and she kept her grip, wasting just three match points before wrapping up on Pegula’s serve with a booming backhand winner on line.