In a three-hour battle of former US Open champions, Iga Swiatek and Naomi Osaka played one of the most thrilling matches of the 2024 season on Wednesday at Roland Garros. Osaka, seeking her first Top 10 win since before the pandemic, had a match point on serve at 5-3 in the third set but could not close out the world No. 1 and two-time defending Paris champion.
Despite trailing 5-2 in the third set and facing a set point against her in both sets she won, Swiatek survived for a 7-6(1), 1-6, 7-5 victory on Court Philippe-Chatrier.
“That was much more intense for a second-round match than I expected,” the top seed said in her on-court interview. “She played really, really great tennis. For sure, I’m happy that she’s back.”
The third meeting in a potentially budding rivalry between these two champions was by far the most dramatic, after they split straight-sets decisions in Toronto in 2019 (Osaka) and Miami in 2022 (Swiatek). In a contest with quality deserving of a final, Swiatek's clutch tennis made the difference as Osaka's lack of recent big-match experience seemed to loom large.
In the pivotal 5-3 game in the final set, with Osaka serving for the match, the Japanese star missed a mid-court forehand into the net—a would-be winner that would have given her two match points at 40-15. She recovered to bring up a match point in that game, but was broken after two deuces. When she stepped back to the line to serve at 5-5, she missed out on two game points as Swiatek again fought through multiple deuces to break.
The victory extends the Pole's winning streak to 14 matches after title runs at the WTA 1000s in Madrid and Rome. She lost just two sets in Madrid and won all 12 sets she played in Rome.
Osaka snapped her opponent's 16-set winning run by dominating the second set. The former world No. 1 showed her championship pedigree with a brilliant display of power tennis that peaked with an unstoppable run of 11 of 14 games across sets two and three. But Swiatek methodically worked her way back into the match, pushing Osaka back with her own aggression as she won five straight games to close out the match.
When Osaka was able to step into her groundstrokes, her power was too much for even Swiatek to handle. She was less effective on the run, with Swiatek successfully moving her around the clay court down the stretch to re-establish herself in the match.
All four of Osaka's Grand Slam titles have come on hard courts (Australian Open 2019 , 2021; US Open 2019, 2020), while three of Swiatek's four have come on the clay of Roland Garros (2020, 2022-23). Osaka has reached just one tour-level semifinal on the dirt (Stuttgart 2019), while Swiatek is the undisputed 'Queen of Clay,' in the eyes of everyone but herself. ("It's too early," she said when asked about the moniker.)
Osaka is now 13-10 in her comeback season. After the disappointment of this narrow defeat fades, the 26-year-old can take plenty of positives into the rest of the year. She is set to return to the US Open for the first time since a 2022 first-round exit this summer.
