Iga Swiatek defended her French Open title Saturday defeating Karolina Muchova 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 in the final, winning her third championship at Roland Garros in the past four years.
It’s Swiatek’s fourth Grand Slam title overall and she is the first woman to defend the title in Paris since Justine Henin completed a three-peat in 2007.
The 22-year-old Swiatek lost her first Grand Slam final set but joined Monica Seles and Naomi Osaka as the only women in the professional era to go 4-0 in major finals at the start of a career.
Swiatek broke Muchova in the second game and held serve during a nearly 10-minute fifth game and cruised from there, winning the first set in an efficient 44 minutes. Muchova did not help her cause with 14 unforced errors.
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The top-seeded Swiatek won the first three games in the second set against the mistake-prone Muchova, but Muchova bounced back, breaking Swiatek in the fifth and the ninth games and holding serve twice with a chance to serve for the set. But both players broke either each other in the next two games, with Muchova finally closing out the set on the third attempt.
Muchova sprinted out to a 2-0 lead in the final set, winning 10 points in a row at one point. Swiatek held and then broke Muchova to even the match, even spending three consecutive games breaking each other’s serve.
Muchova used a dominant forehand to score winners, but Swiatek ended the two-hour, 46-minute match, with Muchova double-faulting after hitting the ball into the net on her second serve on championship point.
Muchova, a 26-year-old from the Czech Republic who is ranked 43rd in the world, beat No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka after trailing 5-2 in the semifinals and facing match point, had six aces, but was ultimately undone by 38 unforced errors against Swiatek.
