With Iga Swiatek’s foothold on clay slipping, Aryna Sabalenka eyes her Paris second

Girls’s tennis, in comparison with the lads’s recreation, hasn’t had a single dominating drive on clay. No feminine participant has actually come near being as synonymous with the floor as Spaniard Rafael Nadal, whose big shadow hovers over each inch of crimson dust all around the world.

This isn’t to say that there have been no nice dirt-ballers amongst ladies. In any case, Chris Evert, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, Justine Henin and Serena Williams have 26 French Open titles between them, with essentially the most being Evert’s seven and the least Seles, Sanchez-Vicario and Williams’ three every.

Ranges of suspense

It’s simply that no event on clay was sucked out of all suspense with regard to the winner prefer it often occurred within the males’s recreation with Nadal within the draw. Henin, at her greatest, did give off the vibes of a transcendental clay-courter, successful 4 Roland-Garros titles between 2003 and 2007. However in comparison with Nadal’s 14, it was extra a blindingly sensible flicker than a raging fireplace.

With the 2025 version of the French Open getting underway on Sunday, the indicators are that this pattern will proceed, for Iga Swiatek, the three-time defending and four-time Roland-Garros champion, and certainly one of solely three ladies to have gained three in a row in Paris within the Open Period, has gone off the boil.

The 23-year-old is doubtless the most effective on clay from the current technology and, for a major whereas, even threatened to be ‘Nadalesque’. She idolised the 22-time Slam winner, sneaked into stadiums to catch a glimpse like a lovestruck schoolkid and even stated she may cease watching tennis after Nadal retired.

However now, Swiatek doesn’t fairly look the half. For the primary time in 5 seasons, she hasn’t gained a tune-up — not even reached a last — forward of the season’s second Main, and her as soon as formidable grip has loosened. Whereas it’s regular for reminiscence to magnify present-day struggles and masks previous achievements, even Swiatek is underneath no phantasm as she stated in Rome that “it will be silly to count on an excessive amount of as a result of proper now, I’m not capable of play my recreation”.

Can World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka take benefit? The Belarusian has been the participant to beat this yr, having reached the ultimate in six of the 9 tournaments she has entered, successful three of these. What ought to give her confidence is that she is enjoying at near-peak stage, is nearly 4,000 WTA factors away from second-ranked Coco Gauff, and gained in Madrid and completed runner-up in Stuttgart, two key warm-up competitions.

For some time, Sabalenka has been out to show that she is as adept on clay as she is on exhausting courts. Seventeen of her 20 Tour-level trophies, together with three Majors, might have come on the acrylic, however she is a three-time winner in Madrid and a four-time runner-up in Stuttgart. Of the seven reverses in clay-court finals, 4 have come in opposition to the perfect — Swiatek.

Profiting throughout a downturn

However with the Pole going via a downturn, Sabalenka can certainly fancy her possibilities. It’s price noting that Madrid’s altitude and Stuttgart’s indoor circumstances do favour gamers like Sabalenka, who’ve a giant serve and crushing groundstrokes. However as information analyst Jeff Sackman outlined in an article on Tennis Summary simply after her win in Madrid, the slowness of the Parisian clay shouldn’t be a limiting issue for Sabalenka.   

In opposition to her total Tour-level profession win proportion of 71 (364-151), Sabalenka’s success fee on clay is 70 (81-34). Collating information throughout the occasions main as much as the 2024 French Open, Sackman decided that the clay in Paris was the slowest (score of 0.66 to Madrid’s 0.82), however that didn’t alter the 27-year-old’s strategy.

Don’t depend her out: A former finalist in Paris, Coco Gauff has unbelievable retrieving expertise. Regardless of coping with a problematic serve and forehand, she managed to succeed in back-to-back finals in Madrid and Rome. | Picture credit score: Getty Pictures

Her common rally size in Madrid was 3.30. At Roland-Garros, it was a comparable 3.54 and at Rome 3.25. For an enormous server like Sabalenka, the share of unreturned serves is often excessive. Even on this, she had close to equal numbers, the tempo of the court docket however. If it was 30.4% in Madrid, it was 31.6% in Rome and 27.2% on the French Open.

These metrics make sense provided that they’ve translated into success, and right here, Sabalenka’s file isn’t too dangerous. In 2023, she misplaced an in depth three-set semifinal at Roland-Garros to Karolina Muchova, and in 2024, she made the ultimate in Rome (shedding to Swiatek) and misplaced one other tight three-set contest in Paris whereas battling an sickness, this time within the quarterfinals to Russia’s Mirra Andreeva.

“I’ve been working actually exhausting and bettering on bringing selection into my recreation,” Sabalenka stated after the Madrid triumph. “My contact recreation is significantly better proper now; [I’m] attempting to return to the web… I’m unsure if it’s actually profitable up to now, however I’m attempting. It’s all the time ‘work on your self’ and all the time in search of one thing to enhance and get higher at.”

What offers Sabalenka a chance at Roland-Garros is the openness of the sector. Other than Swiatek’s lack of type, Gauff, regardless of reaching back-to-back finals in Madrid and Rome, nonetheless appears undercooked. She is a former finalist in Paris (2022) and has unbelievable retrieving expertise, however her serves and forehand have turned problematic once more. Within the 3-hour, 32-minute slugfest in opposition to Qinwen Zheng within the Rome semifinals, Gauff accounted for a whopping 16 double-faults.

Worthy adversaries

Nevertheless, Jasmine Paolini, who just lately conquered Rome and is now as much as No. 4, and Jelena Ostapenko, the all-action, supremely attacking 2017 Roland-Garros champion, can show to be worthy adversaries.

Harmful floater: Jelena Ostapenko, a former champion in Paris, boasts of an astonishing 6-0 file over Swiatek and defeated Sabalenka within the latest Stuttgart last. | Picture credit score: Getty Pictures

Paolini was a shock finalist on the 2024 French Open, however by reaching the Wimbledon last instantly after and staying within the top-10 for almost a yr, the 29-year-old Italian has proven that she is just not one to be trifled with. Ostapenko is a harmful floater, and the 27-year-old Latvian boasts of an astonishing 6-0 file over Swiatek and defeated Sabalenka within the Stuttgart last final month.

What Sabalenka must also be cautious of is her personal file in crunch matches. The Belarusian has misplaced 17 Tour-level summit clashes from the 37 she has contested, together with on the 2025 Australian Open to Madison Keys and the 2023 US Open to Gauff. As a top-five participant, and as No. 1, she has misplaced as many finals as she has gained (5-5 and 3-3).

There’s additionally the probably assembly with Swiatek within the last-four. The Pole might have dropped all the way down to No. 5 — out of the highest three for the primary time since March 2022 — and first has to get previous Paolini within the quarterfinals, however enjoying a bona fide red-dirt knowledgeable is not going to be on most individuals’s bucket record.

“Proper now, I’m stronger than ever, bodily and mentally, and in addition my recreation improved loads,” Sabalenka insisted in Rome, the place she misplaced to Zheng within the quarterfinals. “So I actually hope that is the yr the place I’m going to look again on the clay-court season and be tremendous happy with myself.”