French Open: surprise! Maria Sakkari ends Iga Swiatek's dream of defending her title
Iga Swiatek will not defend her title at the French Open: The 20-year-old lost to Maria Sakkari in the quarter-finals 4-6 and 4-6.
by Nikolaus Fink
last edit: Jun 09, 2021, 03:06 pm
Before the start of the last women's quarter-final match of this year's French Open, everything seemed to have been done for defending champion Iga Swiatek : All the favorites for the title had started their journey home a few days ago, and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Tamara Zidansek and Barbora Krejcikova took care of the last eight more surprises.
Against Maria Sakkari, everything went according to plan for the defending champion with a quick break to make it 2-0, but after that the thread broke completely at Swiatek. The Pole made mistakes that were too quick in the rallies and, especially with her otherwise strong forehand, could not exert pressure as usual - consequently the first round went 6: 4 to Sakkari.
After an early break for the Greek in the second section, Swiatek had to take a treatment break on her right thigh off the field, after which the world number ninth came back with a large tape bandage on her leg. The game changed very little, however, with the score of 3: 1 Sakkari did not know how to use two breakballs.
Sakkari doesn't let anything burn
Anyone who expected Swiatek to make a comeback was taught better. Sakkari stayed true to her aggressive baseline game and didn’t let anything burn on her own serve. After a little more than one and a half hours of play, the world rankings-18 fixed. the 6: 4 and 6: 4 success.
Swiatek's dream of defending his title came to an abrupt end. Sakkari, on the other hand - like all four semi-finalists - is in the semifinals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in their career. In this, the 25-year-old meets Barbora Krejcikova, who had asserted herself against Cori Gauff a few hours earlier .
Here the single tableau in Roland Garros
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