Iga Swiatek has been on quite the journey in the past six weeks, from comparative crisis point entering Roland Garros to first-time Wimbledon semifinalist.
It’s yet another example of how quickly champions can rebound and how class is permanent.
Swiatek powered into the last four on Wednesday with a 6-2 7-5 win over Liudmila Samsonova, setting up a clash with Belinda Bencic after the Swiss outmanoeuvred Mirra Andreeva.
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She has dropped only one set all fortnight at the Championships, and of the 10 she has won more than half have been by scorelines of 6-1 or 6-2.
Most notably, she has now reached the semifinals of all four Grand Slam tournaments in her career – the first Polish player to do this in the Open era.
“[That] means a lot,” Swiatek smiled, after reaching three consecutive major semifinals for the first time.
“I'm just happy. I'll try and go for more.”
Swiatek improves to 8-1 on grass in 2025, the most matches she has won on the surface in a single season.
Yet as Roland Garros approached in late May, Swiatek looked far from happy.
She’d been obliterated 6-1 6-1 in the Madrid semifinals by Coco Gauff and suffered a dispiriting third-round loss in Rome to Danielle Collins, both tournaments played on her beloved clay and at which she was the defending champion.
She arrived in Paris ranked No.5 – her lowest position in more than three years – and while there was an upswing in her form, including a phenomenal win over Elena Rybakina, she was stopped in the semifinals by Aryna Sabalenka.
This ended her quest for an historic fourth consecutive French title and it came by way of a 6-0 third-set defeat to Sabalenka – a scoreline Swiatek is more accustomed to inflicting on her opponents.
Swiatek sank to world No.8 and by this point had gone an entire year without progressing to a tournament final, something she had not experienced since 2020.
But she immediately rebounded.
In her next tournament at Bad Homburg, Swiatek ended that drought by advancing to the title match – her first tournament final on grass.
“I would say we mainly focused on my movement and how I should stop before hitting the ball,” Swiatek said of her grasscourt-specific training. “For sure I'm just happy that the work that I've been doing, I can use it now.
“That was my goal this year, because I saw how I can play on practice courts. I was just not sure if I can do it on the match court.
“I kind of already did. I'm going to try to continue that.”
The Bad Homburg result propelled her back inside the WTA top four – yet too late to impact her Wimbledon seeding – and she has since achieved her best Wimbledon result, surpassing her quarterfinal run in 2023.
Interestingly, that last-eight appearance at SW19 came after she saved two match points to beat Bencic in the fourth round.
Two years later she confronts Bencic again, this time in a semifinal featuring two Wimbledon junior champions targeting their first women’s singles final.
“I still feel like in 2023 I had a great tournament, and I was playing good tennis, but it obviously wasn't enough to go further,” Swiatek reflected.
“This year, I feel like I developed as a player, and I had time to practise a little bit more. Match by match my confidence, for sure, went up so that I can use it on this Championship.”
Swiatek plays Bencic in the second women’s semifinal on Centre Court on Thursday.