“It was heartbreaking, but it was a lesson”: Iga Swiatek on Halep defeat that shaped her Roland-Garros trajectory

Iga Swiatek returned to Roland-Garros with force, extending her record in the Paris Grand Slam to 41 wins (with only three defeats). The four-time French Open champion defeated 17-year-old Emerson Jones in a commanding 6-1, 6-2 victory—a win that she herself recognizes as giving her confidence to start her campaign in Paris.

“I’m really happy with the way I played,” she said just at the beginning of her press conference. “It was a solid match from the beginning to the end. I technically knew how to play, so I just did it and it was a good day for sure.”

The world No. 3 will have somewhat less pressure than in previous occasions, considering that this time she is not the defending champion. Back in 2025, she fell in the semifinals in a painful defeat against Aryna Sabalenka, ending a streak of 26 consecutive wins at the tournament.

This time, Swiatek—who has not lifted a clay-court title since Roland-Garros 2024—advanced comfortably against the young debutant Jones in just 61 minutes. She produced 17 winners and committed 16 unforced errors, compared to only 5 winners from Jones and 22 unforced errors.

Swiatek, as a four-time champion, faced debutant Emerson Jones on Court Philippe-Chatrier, an experience that is always complicated for a first-time player. The Polish player lived through the same situation herself back in 2019, when she competed at Roland-Garros for the first time at 18 years old, reaching the fourth round, where she played for the first time on Philippe-Chatrier.

On that occasion, she faced defending champion Simona Halep, the third seed, who had been dominant on tour in the previous seasons. Against a far more experienced opponent, Swiatek suffered a heavy 6-1, 6-0 defeat to the Romanian.

“In 2019, I had already played junior tournaments, so I knew the vibe of the event,” Swiatek said in the press conference. “But it’s different at pro level. I was just trying to get the best result possible with the game I had.”

“The next year, maybe the difference was that I felt I was improving with every match and that my game was fitting the scorelines better. I just had more belief that I could go further,” she added, referring to her 2020 campaign, when she surprised the world by winning the title as an unseeded player.

“In 2019 I also played quite well, but I was a bit injured. Then against Simona (Halep), she beat me quite hard,” Swiatek recalled. “It was heartbreaking, but it was a lesson I had to learn. She was playing her best tennis, and without that loss I wouldn’t have played much better the next year.”

Another topic mentioned by the six-time major champion was the upcoming release of the Rafael Nadal documentary on Netflix. Swiatek’s admiration for Nadal is well known, and she also works with Francisco Roig, a coach from the Rafa Nadal Academy who served as an alternate coach for the Spaniard for more than 15 years.

When asked whether she will watch the series, which premieres this week, the Polish player explained that she was very close to attending the premiere, but a scheduling error ultimately ruined those plans.

“Honestly, it's a bit of a complicated subject for us,” she explained. “Francis (Roig) told us in Madrid: ‘There’s the premiere of the documentary about Rafa,’ so the whole team got ready the night before with outfits and everything. Then it turned out the date was wrong—it was actually a few days earlier, and we missed it. I was really sad.”

“I will watch it straight away unless I play the next day, because I will cry. I need to plan it properly. I would love to have been at the premiere, but I couldn’t because of that scheduling mistake.”

Swiatek is currently focused on her Roland-Garros campaign, with her next challenge scheduled for Wednesday, May 27, when she will face 20-year-old Sara Bejlek (world No. 35).

The young Czech player is a former junior doubles champion at Roland-Garros (and a semifinalist in the same tournament), as well as a surprise winner of a WTA 500 event earlier this year in Abu Dhabi. However, since then she has struggled to find consistency on tour to establish herself in the upper part of the rankings.