At French Open, Swiatek loses set, extends match win streak
"It was Dua Lipa," Swiatek said, "so kind of a guilty pleasure." She has won her past five tournaments, going unbeaten since February for the WTA's longest such stretch since Serena Williams compiled a 34-match run in 2013. With 23-time Grand Slam champion Williams absent from the tour for nearly a year, and Swiatek's predecessor atop the rankings, two-time major winner Ash Barty, having recently retired, there is no dominant figure in women's tennis to mount a challenge.
Next to try to stop Swiatek will be 11th-seeded Jessica Pegula, who advanced to her third major quarterfinal — and first in Paris — with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 victory over Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania, who was fined $10,000 last week when she threw her racket and it bounced into the stands, brushing a child in a front-row seat.
Pegula, owner of a 2-3 record at Roland Garros before this year, saw two sides to taking on Swiatek, who beat her on a hard court at the Miami Open in March.
"Sometimes you're like, ‘Oh, I wish I didn't play her in the quarterfinals. I wish I played one of the other people and didn't meet her so early,'" Pegula said. "But at the same time, it's a great chance to have a great win and a great story." The other women's quarterfinal Wednesday will be between two Russians: No. 20 Daria Kasatkina and No. 29 Veronika Kudermetova. They were teammates on the team that won the Billie Jean King Cup last year — Russia was barred from trying to defend that title because of the country's invasion of Ukraine — and have known each other since they were kids, squaring off as juniors as long ago as 2011.
Pegula, whose parents own the NFL's Buffalo Bills and NHL's Buffalo Sabres, joins two other American women in the quarterfinals.
Coco Gauff, an 18-year-old seeded 18th, and Sloane Stephens, the 2017 US Open champion and 2018 French Open runner-up, face each other on Tuesday, when the other women's matchup will be No. 17 Leylah Fernandez, a 19-year-old from Canada, against 54th-ranked Martina Trevisan of Italy.
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