Iga's Paris dominance: Inside the numbers

The three-peat in sight 

This year in Paris, Swiatek will bid to become the first woman to win three consecutive Roland-Garros titles since Justine Henin completed her three-peat in 2007. If successful, Swiatek would be the third player to achieve the feat in the Open Era, joining Henin and Monica Seles, who won three straight titles from 1990 to 1992.

With a 77-10 lifetime record on the clay, Swiatek will enter this year’s women’s singles draw as the heavy favourite, but she’s not exactly buying the hype. 

“I'm No.1 so I'm the favourite everywhere if you look at rankings. But rankings don't play [the matches], so… I'll do everything step by step and we'll see,” Swiatek said in Rome after defeating Aryna Sabalenka for her 21st career title. 

The triple threat… 

Only once before has a woman managed to sweep through titles at Madrid, Rome and Roland-Garros in the same season. The 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams pulled the feat off in 2013, capping a romp through Europe by defeating Maria Sharapova in the final to capture her second of three titles in Paris. 

Swiatek, now 38-4 for the season, will try to follow in the footsteps of the American this year as she bids for her fifth major title overall.

14, and counting… 

No stranger to invincibility, Swiatek – who carried a 37-match winning streak through to her second Roland-Garros title in 2022 – will look to extend her current Paris heater this year. The Pole has won her past 14 matches on the Parisian clay, and in those matches she has dropped just two of 29 sets. Moreover, in nine of those sets Swiatek has dropped one or fewer games. 

Swiatek is also carrying a 12-match tour-level winning streak into the tournament, having gone undefeated through Madrid and Rome.

Losses have been rare in Paris

Swiatek hit the ground running in Paris in her debut in 2019, reaching the round of 16 before falling to Simona Halep. Since then the Pole has been nothing but dominant, reeling off titles in 2020, 2022 and 2023 to take her lifetime record in Paris to 28-2. 

Halep (2019) and Maria Sakkari (2021) are the only two players to have handed Swiatek a defeat at the clay-court Grand Slam. 

Swiatek’s success in her first 30 matches in Paris puts her in some extremely heady company. Here’s how she stacks up against some of the all-time greats: 

First 30 main draw matches at Roland-Garros: 

• Monica Seles: 29-1
• Chris Evert: 29-1
• Iga Swiatek: 28-2
• Justine Henin: 26-4
• Arantxa Sanchez Vicario: 26-4
• Steffi Graf: 26-4
• Serena Williams: 25-5 
• Garbine Muguruza: 25-5
• Hana Mandlikova: 25-5
• Iva Majoli: 25-5
• Martina Hingis: 25-5
• Martina Navratilova: 25-5
• Maria Sharapova: 23-7

The bakery is open 

To her credit, Swiatek doesn’t like to talk about her propensity for handing bagels to the opposition, but her racquet can’t help speaking for her in this case. The Pole has recorded a staggering 11 6-0 sets in her 30 matches at Roland-Garros, which means that 17.7 percent of the sets she has played in Paris have ended with a 6-0 scoreline in her favour. 

If you’re scoring at home, Swiatek herself has lost two 6-0 sets, to Monica Puig, in the third round in 2019, and Simona Halep in the round of 16 in the same year. She recovered and eventually defeated Puig, 0-6, 6-3, 6-3, but fell to Halep, 6-1, 6-0.