Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Swiatek Makes History as Poland's 1st Grand Slam Singles Champion


Sun 11 Oct 2020 | 05:40 PM
Mohammad Elzoheiry

Young Polish Iga Swiatek, 19, became the first female athlete from Poland to win a major tennis tournament title, after winning Saturday in the French Open, Roland Garros final against fourth-seeded American Sofia Kienen, 6-4 6-1.

The 19-year-old became the youngest Roland Garros champion among women since 1992, and only the second unrated player to be crowned after Latvian Jelena Ostapenko in 2017, and the first player to win the title without losing a set in the tournament since Belgium's Justine Henin in 2007.

Polish teenager, is the youngest Roland-Garros women's winner since Monica Seles triumphed in Paris as an 18-year-old in 1992 and is the first teenager to lift the women's singles trophy since Iva Majoli in 1997.

Swiatek, ranked 54th globally, has never gone beyond the fourth round in her previous seven Grand Slam appearances, and she had no title in her professional career, and her best result was reaching the final of the Lugano tournament in Switzerland last year.

She is the second Polish woman to compete in the final of a major tournament in the modern era (1968) after Agnieszka Radwańska, runner-up at Wimbledon 2012, and the third in all major tournaments after Jadwiga Ydrzyowska made runner-up at Roland Garros 1939, after two finals in Wimbledon and the United States in 1937.

The match was the first "Grand Slam" final for two players aged 21 or younger since the 2008 Australian Open, when Russian Maria Sharapova defeated Serbian Anna Ivanovic, and the first in Roland Garros since 2003 when Justine Henin beat Kim Clijsters.