Swiatek vs Osaka: Roland Garros Round 2 Analysis
The most reliable groundstroke in the world
cover 📸 credit: WTA Tour twitter
Defending champion and current world no.1 Iga Swiatek along with 4-times Major winner and former no.1 Naomi Osaka delivered a strong candidate for “match of the season”!
Three hours of intense ball-striking and a fair number of stressful, hard-fought games. A thrilling encounter that brought comparisons to Swiatek’s heroics three weeks ago in the WTA 1000 Madrid final against Aryna Sabalenka.
For a match played on clay, it was much closer than many antecipated.
Iga Swiatek won. But she needed to save a match point before extending her winning streak in Roland Garros to 16 matches (and current overall streak to 14 matches).
Naomi Osaka lost. But she held a set point in each set and won 5 more points in the match (114-109).
Parity abounded.
There was a near split when players duelled simultaneously from the back of the court — Swiatek won 70 points, Osaka won 68 (more on “match data” section).
There was a tie in 3 of 4 point-defining rally patterns when all 162 rallies were broken down. The only exception came from crosscourt rallies through the AD court (marked in red).
Swiatek won 6 more rallies in the match (84-78). All of her advantage originated from points decided during backhand-to-backhand exchanges (21-15).
This is a great launching pad to our take-home message from this thrilling clash.