CONGRATULATIONS IGA: Iga Swiatek maintains 24-match winning streak at French Open: Stats

PARIS — For a few minutes, anyway, it seemed as if Iga Swiatek was a bit off her game in the French Open final against Jasmine Paolini. Swiatek kept making mistakes and got broken early to fall behind Saturday on Court Philippe Chatrier.

Might a true surprise be in the offing? Could Paolini not only make a match of this, but actually win it?

Um, no. Not even close.

The top-seeded Swiatek recalibrated her wayward strokes and simply overwhelmed Paolini, grabbing 10 games in a row en route to a 6-2, 6-1 victory that gave her a third consecutive championship at Roland Garros and fourth in five years.

“I love this place, honestly,” Swiatek said. “I wait every year to come back here.”

She stretched her French Open winning streak to 21 matches, and her career record there is 35-2.

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The 23-year-old from Poland is the first woman with three trophies in a row in Paris since Justine Henin from 2005-07.

“I have to say congratulations to you, Iga,” said the 12th-seeded Paolini, a 28-year-old from Italy appearing in her first Slam final. “I think to play you here is the toughest challenge in this sport.”

Swiatek also won the French Open in 2020 and the U.S. Open in 2022 and is now 5-0 in major finals.

After a scare in the second round last week against Naomi Osaka, when Swiatek needed to save a match point, this represented a fifth straight lopsided win. Swiatek took every set in that span and only ceded a total of 17 games.

“I was almost out of the tournament in the second round, so thank you guys for kind of staying behind my back and cheering for me,” Swiatek told a crowd dotted by red-and-white Polish flags. “I also needed to believe that this one is going to be possible. It’s been a really emotional tournament.”