Iga Swiatek, scourge for the American school

It is not a big news: American women's tennis has been in the campaign for some time.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
04 June 2022 Saturday 09:04
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Iga Swiatek, scourge for the American school

It is not a big news: American women's tennis has been in the campaign for some time.

And his best advertiser is Will Smith.

A couple of months ago, Will Smith took the stage during the Oscars to slap Chris Rock, the comedian who had dared to laugh at Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith's wife. And already, we spent days talking about that moment, clueless and morbid as we are.

Well, if Will Smith was at the gala (and would end up taking a statuette), it was for his role as Richard Williams in King Richard, the biopic of the tennis sisters, a tad sweetened.

What an advertisement!

Suddenly the whole world, and boys and girls too, knew about the Williamses: they discovered the names of Venus and Serena, they learned that American women's tennis had a splendid past, not that long ago.

And now?

Now is the present and the Williamses are not there, nor are Navratilova, Evert, Capriati, McEnroe, Sampras, Agassi, Courier or Roddick. Now men's tennis is a wasteland and women's does what it can.

Wait a minute, what's left for the United States isn't too bad either.

Among the women, two interesting generations have swirled, that of the almost thirtysomething Madison Keys, Danielle Collins, Jessica Pegula or Alison Riske, and that of the adolescent Coco Gauff (18), possibly the most brilliant of them all.

Gauff is the teenager who this Saturday wept inconsolably on the bench and on the podium while her helpless parents watched her from the stands.

Aren't you dying to get down on the dance floor and hug your daughter?

His creature was a victim of nerves and disappointment, as he had been overwhelmed by Iga Swiatek (6-1 and 6-3 in just 1h08m), the woman who had not only stopped the emerging Gauff, but also all American tennis.

Well, in 2020, the year of the pandemic and the apocalyptic Roland Garros (it was played in the autumn, in the cold, and with empty stands and often under the sliding roof), Swiatek (21) had also prevailed in the Bois de Boulogne , at that time defeating Sofia Kenin, another American. And because now, in this edition, he has taken three other Americans ahead: Riske, in the second round; Pegula, quartered; and now, Gauf.

And so, she stretched her streak of consecutive victories to 35, something that only seven other tennis players have achieved so far (Navratilova, Graf, Court, Evert, Hingis, Seles and Venus Williams), to consolidate her dominance of the stage.

Now that Ashleigh Barty has left, bored with tennis, Swiatek has a free court to take flight.