WIMBLEDON, England — World No. 1 and top seed at Wimbledon Iga Swiatek did something on Saturday that she hasn’t done in more than four months. She lost a tennis match.
Swiatek, the 21-year-old two-time Grand Slam winner from Poland, lost in the third round to Alizé Cornet, the experienced Frenchwoman, 6-4, 6-2, ending her 37-game winning streak, one of the longest in modern women’s tennis .
However, Swiatek didn’t lose the match as much as Cornet actually won it.
Cornet toyed with the strapping of her left thigh and came out with a hard swing that matched Swiatek’s power and took advantage of the Polish champions’ discomfort on grass.
After losing the first set, Swiatek seemed to quickly put things right and took a 2-0 lead. But Cornet reeled off six straight games, with Swiatek losing the final point with a forehand into the middle of the net.
Swiatek shook hands with her opponent, quickly stowed her racquets and headed for the exit of the No. 1 court, where just two days earlier she had been pressured into three sets by an unknown relative.
She waved and gave the crowd a thumbs-up as she left, then stopped to sign a series of autographs before leaving.
The result looked familiar to Cornet. In 2014, she defeated Serena Williams, then world No. 1 and the tournament’s top seed, at the same No. 1 spot.
That was relatively early in her career, however. Eight years later, in just 93 minutes, she pulled off another monumental upset, making it into the second week of a Grand Slam for the second time that year. Then, fittingly, she compared herself to another French favourite.
“Like fine wine,” she told the crowd. “It ages well.”
However, the afternoon was really dedicated to Swiatek.
Anyone who has ever picked up a racquet knows the game’s most basic adage – it’s hard to win a tennis match, but incredibly easy to lose one. A few bad shots, a bad quarter of an hour’s serve, the briefest lack of concentration, and one set and then the next slip away in what felt like minutes. Hopelessness sets in and getting off the pitch as soon as possible can feel like the best and only alternative, when it isn’t.
However, hopelessness was not the reason for Swiatek’s exit on Saturday. It was cornet. A fearless opponent can be just as deadly.
That’s just part of what made Swiatek’s performances in the first half of this year so remarkable in an era of women’s tennis where competition is intense from the first round of almost every tournament.
Swiatek lost to free-swinging Latvian Jelena Ostapenko in the quarterfinals of the Dubai Tennis Championships on February 16. Since then, she has won six straight singles titles, including her second French Open. She won three tournaments at the Masters 1,000 level, just below the Grand Slams.
In March and April she won the so-called Sunshine Double – the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, and the Miami Open. Only three other women had done this before. At the French Open, she lost just one set. Other players spoke of simply trying to break the one-hour mark on the pitch with her. Many have failed.
However, Swiatek always thought that the grass season could mean the end of their streak. She loves to take on bouncing shots and uses her topspin and power to push opponents into the background from the first moments of the game.
After winning the French Open in early June, she faced the choice of playing a warm-up or two to get more comfortable on her least favorite surface, or taking a break and arriving at Wimbledon refreshed. She preferred to rest and hoped that her increasing confidence would help her solve the grass puzzle. It has not.
In practice, their timing was off. In matches, balls skidded across the grass instead of bouncing into their hitting zone, taking their greatest weapon, that topspin power, out of their quiver and forcing them to play more conservatively.
She returned to Plan A on Saturday afternoon and attempted to knock Cornet off the pitch. Unable to control the ball, she dropped the first three games against a player who genuinely believed she could do what hadn’t been done in a long time.
Swiatek rallied to the scoreboard but Cornet never gave up the advantage, finishing the first set with an emphatic overhead. She then left the court before the start of the second set, leaving Swiatek sitting in her chair and contemplating her fate.
Swiatek returned to plan A in the second set and took a 2-0 lead, but she soon strayed again. At the breakpoint in game five, Cornet jumped on a second serve and laced a forehand down the line. Swiatek lowered her chin and went to her chair to adjust.
From there, the only question was whether Cornet could remain solid enough to cross the finish line. The answer came quickly.
“When I come back I usually have a plan and know what I need to change,” Swiatek said. “I didn’t know here. I was confused. Everything happens so quickly on grass pitches.”
Cornet won the next three games and 12 of the last 14 points.
“I didn’t tank it, but I just didn’t know what to do,” Swiatek said.
Swiatek will now rest a little more. However, she will soon be heading to North America for the hard court season. Clay still reigns in her mind, but after winning the Miami Open in April, two weeks after winning Indian Wells, she said hard courts are a very, very close second.
Another raid could be on the horizon. Few would be surprised. And if not, she will always have 37.