Not long after Novak Djokovic battled for four and a half hours to reach the fourth round, his compatriot Iga Swiatek opened Sunday’s fixture by handing a 6-0, 6-0 double bagel to Anastasia Potapova.
At just 40 minutes, this was the shortest match of Swiatek’s career – and also the shortest at Roland Garros in 26 years.
For a faster finish, you have to go back to Steffi Graf, who needed just 32 minutes to beat Natasha Zvereva by the same score. Remarkably, that match was the 1998 French Open final.
From the moment Swiatek completed her first service game with an ace, she had Russia’s Potapova – ranked No. 43 in the world – scrambling in all directions.
Swiatek only dropped ten points in the entire match, and it was hard to remember many Potapova groundstrokes that even found the court, let alone put her under pressure. Entire games went by, consisting of one- or two-shot rallies.
As the debate continues over the French Tennis Federation’s reluctance to schedule women’s matches at night on Court Philippe Chatrier, tournament director Amelie Mauresmo might be tempted to point to Swiatek-Potapova’s no-match and say: “This is why we say ‘Don’t do that.’
Swiatek is building a similar clay aura to that of Rafael Nadal. On the Roland Garros show courts he felt as intimidating as the bogeyman under the bridge.
When a player like Swiatek has an answer to every shot and can track down almost every ball, her opponents often feel pressured to go for overly ambitious winners. This could partly explain Potapova’s 19 unforced errors and shoddy serve stats, where she landed just 39 percent of her first deliveries.
Speaking to the media after the match, Swiatek revealed that she and Potapova – who were born two months apart in the spring of 2001 – had often bumped into each other during their junior careers.
“I just felt like times are changing a little bit,” Swiatek said. “Because I remember she was always the player that beat me. I don’t think I won against her, and I lost some heartbreaking matches.
“Like the semi-final of the Orange Bowl, when I had match point, and I lost here when I had a pretty good tournament. We always played against each other, like European championships or something like that.
“Honestly, there’s no point in thinking about that. But I had the same thought. It lasted two seconds and then I focused on my work because that’s the best I can do.”
Swiatek’s ultra-quick victory was immediately followed by another one-sided women’s match, as world number 3 Coco Gauff crushed Italy’s Elisabetta Cocciaretto with a 6-1, 6-2 scoreline in exactly an hour.
Gauff said she had expected to enter the court quickly, having predicted a quick conclusion from Swiatek, although probably not as quick as it was. “I thought the match was probably in about an hour and fifteen, an hour at the most. I certainly didn’t expect 40 minutes. But it didn’t really have much of an impact, because I kind of knew it. You plan for the quickest case.”
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