Saturday, May 24 2025 | Time 20:16 Hrs(IST)
SportsPosted at: May 24 2025 3:28PM


Rivals attempt to dethrone Swiatek at French Open

Paris, May 24 (UNI) Will Iga Swiatek's reign at the French Open continue - or can one of her rivals dethrone the 'Queen of Clay'?
The 23-year-old is the three-time defending champion in Paris and has won four of the past five titles there.
But Poland's former world number one does not arrive at Roland Garros with her usual air of invincibility.
Swiatek has not lifted a trophy, or even made a final, since winning the French Open 12 months
ago - a period during which she served a one month doping suspension.
Among the main threats to Swiatek's bid to become the first woman to win four consecutive French Open titles are Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff.
Sabalenka replaced Swiatek as world number one towards the end of 2024, having won two of the four Grand Slams that year.
The Belarusian, runner-up at the Australian Open in January, is in imperious form. She won the Madrid Open in the build-up to Roland Garros and has won 34 of her 40 matches this season,
the BBC reported.
American Gauff, meanwhile, has not lost before the quarter-finals in her past four French Open appearances.
Runner-up three years ago, 2023 US Open champion Gauff was denied another title tilt by Swiatek
in the semi-finals last year.
American world number three Jessica Pegula is chasing a first major but, after missing last year's tournament through injury, is yet to go beyond the quarter-finals at the French Open.
Italy's Jasmine Paolini reached two major finals in a breakout 2024 season, including losing to Swiatek in Paris, and beat Gauff to the Italian Open title in May.
History-making teenager Mirra Andreeva is also a contender. The 18-year-old Russian reached the semi-finals last year and, after becoming the youngest player to win a WTA 1,000 title in February, could become the youngest woman to win a major since 2004.
China's Zheng Qinwen, meanwhile, won Olympic gold at on the Roland Garros clay last summer and stunned Sabalenka at the Italian Open earlier in May.
Katie Boulter is the top-ranked British woman in the singles draw but the 28-year-old has never won a match at the French Open.
However, Boulter won her first WTA Tour match on clay in Madrid last month before celebrating her first clay-court title at a WTA 125 event in Paris last week.
Former US Open champion Emma Raducanu said she was beginning to "build a relationship" with clay courts while completing her French Open preparations in Strasbourg, but suffered an injury
scare in her second-round exit.
Raducanu will hope to overcome any back issue quickly, having returned to the world's top 50, reached the Italian Open fourth round and beat world number 17 Daria Kasatkina on the clay in recent months.
Fellow Britons Sonay Kartal and Jodie Burrage will also contest the women's singles.
Britons Olivia Nicholls is in the women's doubles with partner Tereza Mihalikova of Slovakia, while Harriet Dart will play alongside Australia's Kimberley Birrell.
UNI BM
Tags: #Rivals attempt to dethrone Swiatek at French Open
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