19-year-old Iga Swiatek made it into the final of the French Open without losing a set. In the duel of the surprise players from Roland Garros, she defeated the Argentine Nadia Podoroska 6: 2, 6: 1. Swiatek from Poland dominated the game and never got into trouble, using her first match point after only 1:10 hours.
Although Swiatek only brought 40 percent of her first serves in the first set, her Podoroska could not be dangerous. The 23-year-old Argentinian, who was the first qualifier in history to reach the semi-finals of the French Open, revealed problems with the second serve: Podoroska only won 44 percent of the points after the second service, while Swiatek won 73 percent. Podoroska gave her only break ball in the first set when the score was 3: 1.
In the second set Swiatek became more and more dominant, after less than twelve minutes Swiatek was leading 4-0 with two breaks. Podoroska looked desperate and couldn’t cope with Swiatek’s aggressive style of play. The Pole took high risks and was ahead of Podoroska in the statistics for both winning hits and unnecessary mistakes. That usually paid off: The 19-year-old only showed nerves once in the second round when she gave up her service game to make it 4-1. The direct re-break meant the decision.
Apparently Swiatek expected a little more resistance, in the quarterfinals Podoroska had thrown the number three seeded Elina Switolina out of the tournament. After the match point, Swiatek looked at her box and shrugged. It is not to be expected that she will have a similar easy game in the final on Saturday (from 3 p.m.). The second place in the final is played by two tournament favorites: Sofia Kenin, seeded number four, meets number seven seeded Petra Kvitova.
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