Eurosport analyst Alex Corretja is of the opinion that Polish tennis star Iga Swiatek is the main obstacle stopping World No.2 Aryna Sabalenka from lifting her first Roland Garros title.
Sabalenka has put on impressive performances in the three clay court tournaments she's featured in this season, reaching two finals. However, she lost both WTA 1000 finals in Madrid and Rome to World No.1 Swiatek, losing the Madrid final in a third set tiebreaker.
Nonetheless, Corretja has praised the Belarusian's progress, highlighting her movement and consistency on the red surface.
"Sabalenka, she's been improving, improving unbelievably," he told Eurosport's Benjamin Popovic. "I mean, I'm very impressed by the way she's hanging in there and handling the whole situation. I think she's already proved to herself that she can do very well on clay. A few years ago, maybe we thought that she was a little bit more inconsistent because she didn't like the surface that much.
"But now she knows how to also move better and be consistent. I think before she was very powerful, but maybe she was missing a little too early. I would say now, you know that she can hit seven, eight, nine shots in a very good speed and this is so difficult for an opponent. There's so much pressure off the return, so much pressure with the serve. If someone is ready to win another major, it's Aryna."
"But now she knows how to also move better and be consistent. I think before she was very powerful, but maybe she was missing a little too early. I would say now, you know that she can hit seven, eight, nine shots in a very good speed and this is so difficult for an opponent. There's so much pressure off the return, so much pressure with the serve. If someone is ready to win another major, it's Aryna."
With that being said, Corretja still believes Swiatek is the only one capable of stopping Sabalenka from capturing her maiden Roland Garros title.
"Is it going to be Roland-Garros? Well, it's probably the toughest place because Iga has got a little bit of an advantage." said Corretja. But we'll see because they can only meet in the final and that is a long way to go."
Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.
As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.
With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.
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