Roger Federer makes triumphant long awaited return to Grand Slam tennis at Roland Garros

Playing in his fourth match of the year and at only his third tournament, former World No. 1 Roger Federer wasted no time getting back to his winning ways at Roland Garros. The eighth seed was on song against qualifier Denis Istomin on Monday, claiming a 6-2, 6-4, 6-3 victory to reach the second round.

The 2009 Roland Garros champion has been keeping his expectations in check ahead of the year’s second Grand Slam tournament. Federer, who underwent two knee surgeries last year and was sidelined for most of the abbreviated 2020 season, made his return to action at ATP 250 events in Doha and Geneva, where he amassed a 1-2 record.

But he shook off the rust in style against Istomin on Court Philippe-Chatrier. Federer didn’t face a break point across three sets, and extended his ATP Head2Head dominance over the Uzbek player to 8-0.

“I just felt overall much clearer, much better,” Federer said. “Clearly also maybe the type of opponent allowed me to have many different ways to win the point. I knew if I came to the net, that was an option, hitting a drop shot was always an option, taking the ball early was an option.”

“I felt today I really made a bigger effort of going more in swings and not going through it like in the practice, where you just go point for point for point,” he added. “I sometimes have to tell myself, Take a little bit of time, walk to the towel, do something different... That's where I think I felt much more comfortable today because I made an effort to think about it.”

Federer will face 2014 US Open winner Marin Cilic in the second round, after the Croatian scored a 7-6(6), 6-1, 6-2 win over French wild card Arthur Rinderknech. It will be Federer's 11th time facing Cilic (9-1), in a rematch of the 2017 Wimbledon final and 2018 Australian Open final (both won by Federer).

Should Federer go on to lift his second Coupe des Mousquetaires trophy next week, he would become the first man in the Open Era to win every Grand Slam championship twice.

Federer took control of the rallies with his serve against Istomin, leaving the Uzbek under pressure and with few opportunities to do damage. He won 80 per cent (37/46) of points behind his first serve, and 79 per cent (15/19) of his second serve points.

The Swiss set the tone early on with a break to 15 in the first game, and he never looked back, finding his range as the match went on. The eighth seed found 48 winners, including eight aces, in the match, with 15 of those coming in the 22-minute opening set.

Istomin did well to hang with Federer in the second and third sets, targeting his opponent’s one-handed backhand. He saved four of five break points in the second set, but couldn’t hold back the 18-time Grand Slam winner as he took the lead again at 2-1. Federer reeled off five of the last six games in the third set to close out the match after an hour and 33 minutes.

“Overall I'm very happy [with my movement],” Federer said. “I can attest to that, as well. I moved pretty well today. I also kept rallies short purposely so I wouldn't get dragged into the long rallies. Always throw in the drop shot. We'll see what happens.”

Did You Know?

Federer has now won 29 of his 30 meetings with qualifiers at the majors. His only defeat to a qualifier at a Grand Slam came against Mario Ancic in the first round at 2002 Wimbledon.

atptennis.com 

I have waited 487 days to say this: Welcome back to Grand Slam tennis Roger Federer. We've missed you. 

I know the French Open is always all about Rafa, but watching Roger play today I was reminded how good, and fun he is to watch on clay. 

Even after all this time away he still possess a gracefulness unmatched by any of his peers. When his serve is working like it was today, his entire game just flows. 

There is a fluidity to the way he moves on court that's still captivating And I genuinely forgot just how much I missed it at Grand Slams especially. 

I know realistically he will not win this tournament, but I hope he sticks around for at least a few more matches, because I just want to enjoy him floating around that court some more.

Roland Garros Champion Iga Swiatek starts title defense with win on her Birthday

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No.8 seed Iga Swiatek posted an impressive 6-0, 7-5 win over Kaja Juvan in one hour and 27 minutes to kick off her Roland Garros title defence. The Pole was untouchable for the first half of the match, dropping just nine points in the first set. But she had to work harder to close it out as Juvan raised her level, and needed all of her focus to edge a second set that could have gone either way.

Juvan is a familiar face for Swiatek. The pair have been both friends and opponents since their junior days, having first met at U14 tournaments and graduated to the pro ranks together. As partners, they were doubles gold medallists at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games; as competitors, they first played in the semifinals of the U16 European Junior Championships back in 2016.

Swiatek won that match 6-3, 6-2, as well as their first pro encounter this February in the second round of the Gippsland Trophy 2-6, 6-2, 6-1. Here, playing her first pro match as a defending champion and celebrating her 20th birthday, she showed no sign of being affected by either the moment or her No.101-ranked opponent, tallying 22 winners to 24 unforced errors.

"You never know what's going to happen when you're coming out on a court as a defending champion," Swiatek said. "I've never been in a situation like that. I'm really glad I could handle that pretty well and just play tennis, play a normal match without having in the back of my mind that I'm defending the title."

Indeed, Swiatek picked up where she had left off two weeks ago in Rome. She had captured that title with an eviscerating performance in the final, whitewashing Karolina Pliskova 6-0, 6-0.

In a 23-minute first set against Juvan, everything Swiatek touched continued to turn to gold. She came out on top of cat-and-mouse net exchanges, flicked reflex dropshot winners off full-power returns and hammered heavy forehands beyond Juvan's reach.

"It's never easy to play against your best friend," said Swiatek. "I have some experience because I played with Kaja for a few times. You just try to block this friendship for two hours, just focus on the game. I think I'm doing that pretty well. It's nice to have that skill. So I was just trying to treat Kaja as any other girl, as any other opponent, because in sports when we are on court you can't have thoughts that are you going to make your game more soft."

Swiatek's winning streak of games reached 20 before Juvan finally held in the second set. From there, the Slovenian turned a one-sided rout into an absorbing contest, methodically working her way back into the match by adjusting her tactics and execution.

Having hit 12 unforced errors but no winners in the first set, Juvan began to find success by repeatedly deploying a well-disguised dropshot - and sometimes a fake dropshot that drew Swiatek forwards before Juvan pushed the ball deep instead.

The 20-year-old's canny play very nearly forced a third set. Having broken back to erase a 1-3 deficit, Juvan held two break points at 5-5, and missed a pass by inches on the second. Serving to stay in the match, she staved off the first three match points she faced with bold play.

But Swiatek, sensing victory, continued to pile on the pressure. A final banger of a backhand on her fourth match point was too much for Juvan to handle and sealed Swiatek's seventh win in a row.

Up next for Swiatek will be Rebecca Peterson, who came from a set and 2-5 down to beat Shelby Rogers 6-7(3), 7-6(8), 6-2 in exactly three hours. The Swede saved three match points in the second-set tiebreak.

That result means Swiatek will avoid the dangerous Rogers, who owns five Top 20 wins in the past year alone, and instead play Peterson, who has just two in her career to date.

https://www.wtatennis.com/news/2163398/swiatek-kicks-off-roland-garros-title-defence-with-juvan-win

20 year old iga Swiatek wrote a message on the camera lens after the match saying she feels old 

Which just made me feel ancient. 

Congrats to Iga on another impressive win and Happy Birthday! 

Iga Swiatek wins 3rd career title in Rome moves into the top 10

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No.15 seed Iga Swiatek was in ruthless form as she routed No.9 seed Karolina Pliskova 6-0, 6-0 in just 46 minutes in the Internazionali BNL d'Italia final.

Swiatek dropped just 13 points in total - four in the first set and nine in the second - and faced only four game points against her. The Pole picks up her third career title following Roland Garros last autumn and Adelaide in February, and the result ensures that she will break the Top 10 for the first time on Monday.

It was the first double bagel to decide the Rome title, and the most one-sided Italian Open final since 1983, when Andrea Temesvari defeated Bonnie Gadusek 6-1, 6-0. The last double bagel in a WTA final was Simona Halep's victory over Anastasija Sevastova at Bucharest 2016, and the last at 1000 level or above was Stefanie Graf's rout of Natasha Zvereva at Roland Garros 1988.

Not that Swiatek was aware, such was her focus on court.

"When my coach told me it was 6-0, 6-0, I was, like, Really? Isn't that a mistake?" she said afterwards. "When I was on the breaks, I was visualising that I'm starting that match from the beginning every time. Actually, I did that so well that I didn't even know that it was 6-0 in the first set... The key is just to not to think about it and just, you know, play. Because when you're gonna think about the score, you can actually ruin your mindset and ruin your attitude."

Today also marked the shortest completed WTA final since Istanbul 2009, when Vera Dushevina needed only 42 minutes to beat Lucie Hradecka 6-0, 6-1.

Double bagels in WTA finals since 2000

2006 Québec City, Marion Bartoli d. Olga Puchkova
2013 Sydney, Agnieszka Radwanska d. Dominika Cibulkova
2016 Bucharest, Simona Halep d. Anastasija Sevastova
2021 Rome, Iga Swiatek d. Karolina Pliskova

Swiatek had never before scored a double bagel win at pro level, though notably had defeated Pliskova's twin sister Kristyna 6-0, 6-1 to reach her first WTA final at Lugano 2019.

For Pliskova, it is just the second time in her career that she has failed to win a game in a completed match following her 6-0, 6-0 loss as a 17-year-old to Anna Korzeniak in the 2009 Latina-Nascosa ITF $10K quarterfinals. A former champion in Rome in 2019 playing her third consecutive final here, a leg injury had forced Pliskova to retire trailing Halep 6-0, 2-1 last year.

Swiatek raced out of the blocks and never let up, striking 17 winners to only five unforced errors over the course of the match. By contrast, a slow-starting Pliskova served two double faults in each of her first two service games, and did not find a winner until she was set point down after 19 minutes.

"From the beginning I felt that she may be a little bit nervous," said Swiatek. "I wanted to use that and actually play as many games with that vibe as I can. That's why it was pretty fast at the beginning.

"I saw that, because I thought her movement wasn't really good, but I also had in my mind that she's gonna start in a minute feeling better and being in a rhythm. So I wasn't really focusing on that."

Matters improved for Pliskova in the second set to the extent that she held two break points in the third game and two points to hold in the sixth. But Swiatek was not only in eviscerating form, able to take a stranglehold of rallies immediately and rarely faltering in finishing them off, but hungry for every game.

The 19-year-old swatted away every opportunity that Pliskova had to even get on the board with renewed focus, and brought up championship point with another brilliant forehand winner.

Swiatek's combination of heavy spin and pace had allowed her to exploit Pliskova's movement throughout the match, and she sealed victory as the Czech sent a forehand wide.

The 13 points Swiatek had conceded are the fewest in a 1000-level final. The previous record were the 24 points Serena Williams lost to Carla Suárez Navarro at Miami 2015.

"I think she had amazing day and I had horrible day," said Pliskova. "That's one of those combinations which I guess can happen.

"I just was feeling horrible out there today. That's one of those days. But I think she really made it extremely difficult for me to do any point and to play anything from my game. She was playing super fast. I thought she was just going for it.

"I had a couple, just a couple, of good shots, and I think she can just redirect so well and she can play even faster, and especially on clay. Because she has so much spin, I think it's super tough to do something from it. Especially today she had amazing placement of the ball. Everything was super deep and just close to the lines."

The result extends Swiatek's record in finals at all levels to an impressive 16-3 - 6-2 in juniors, 7-0 in ITF events and now 3-1 at WTA level. Swiatek also becomes the third player to win a title after saving match point en route in 2021, alongside Naomi Osaka at the Australian Open and Ashleigh Barty in Miami, having staved off two against Barbora Krejcikova in the third round.

The Krejcikova match, in which Swiatek struggled and only gradually found some form, was a turning point.

"Actually, it's a good way to call it like two phases of the tournament," Swiatek said. "At the beginning it was really, really hard. I actually wasn't thinking that it's gonna be enough - I'm not talking about winning the tournament - to even do a good result. But day after day I was feeling a little bit better and I just focused on that. I had good people around me that were telling me not to really worry and that sometimes it's the best idea not to care.

"I think playing yesterday two matches actually gave me more than it would usually, because I would get tired. But this time I was in a rhythm and I could feel that for three hours yesterday. So it gave me a lot of confidence."

wtatennis.com

I'll be honest. I did not think Iga had a chance to win this one based on how she played her first few matches. Nearly being knocked out of the tournament having to save 2 match points in the 3rd round. 

It was only after her matches on Saturday when she had to perform double duty and play quarter finals and semis the same day, that I believed the Iga of 2020 was back. 

I continue to be amazed by her seemingly nerveless performances when it comes to finals. It's almost like when she reaches that stage she flips a switch and is able to play on a whole other level and just turns her emotions off. 

Not many players can concentrate and visualize so well they literally forget the score and have to be told at the end they won without losing a game. That's just extraordinary for someone so young. Roland Garros defence next, and based on what she just did in Rome who's to say she won't lift that trophy again come June. 

That was mighty impressive and a pleaasure to watch as always. Get some well deserved rest Iga you've earned it. Bravo.