PARIS — Iga Swiatek saved a match point and grabbed the last five games to sneak past Naomi Osaka 7-6 (1), 1-6, 7-5 in the second round of the French Open on Wednesday night in a riveting contest between the current No. 1 and a former No. 1 who both own four Grand Slam titles.
For Swiatek, this extended her Roland Garros winning streak to 16 matches as she pursues a third consecutive trophy at the clay-court major tournament. For Osaka, who let a 5-2 lead in the concluding set slip away, this amounted to an announcement that she is still capable of elite tennis.
They went back-and-forth for more than 2½ hours as rain loudly pelted the outside of the closed roof at Court Philippe Chatrier — showers forced the postponements of 23 singles matches until Thursday — and a riveted, if hardly full, crowd alternated their support between the two players. Sometimes, spectators called out before a point was done, prompting admonishment from chair umpire Aurélie Tourte.
Osaka served for the victory at 5-3 in the final set, and held a match point there, but she put a backhand into the net. Soon, when Osaka missed another backhand, this one long, Swiatek finally converted a break point on her 10th chance of that set, and they played on.
Maybe the lack of high-level matches caught up to Osaka, because she continued to fade, her mistakes mounting, including a double-fault to hand over another break that put Swiatek in control 6-5 before holding serve one last time to emerge with a difficult victory.
Coco Gauff, meanwhile, rolled past Tamara Zidansek 6-3, 6-4 in the second round Wednesday, harnessing her mighty forehand in front of a crowd squarely on her side.
The U.S. Open winner sent over nearly two dozen winners and overcame issues with her serve, including six double faults, to set up a meeting with the winner of a match between China’s Wang Yafan and Ukrainian Dayana Yastremska.
Other winners on the women’s side Wednesday included Sofia Kenin, the champion at the Australian Open in 2020 and runner-up at the French Open later that year and Ons Jabeur.
Kenin arrived at the French Open with just a 4-13 record this season and now is into the third round at Roland Garros after eliminating 21st-seeded Caroline Garcia of France 6-3, 6-3.
Jabeur advanced to the third round by defeating Camila Osorio 6-3, 1-6, 6-3.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
