Iga Swiatek gives Ons Jabeur insight on how to avenge Rome defeat at Roland Garros

Hide your water bottles!

There are few things in tennis more dangerous in tennis than a confident and happy player. Top seed Iga Swiatek showed she’s plenty of both when she crashed rival Ons Jabeur’s Media Day press conference at Roland Garros on Friday.

Swiatek captured the Coupe Suzanne-Lenglen for the first time in 2020 and arrives in Paris on a 28-match win streak that includes titles in Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart, and, most recently, at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome.

It was there that she ended Ons Jabeur’s 11-match streak, one that began when she won the biggest title of her career at the Mutua Madrid Open, leaving the No. 6-seeded Tunisian stumped on how to defeat the indomitable Pole.

When Swiatek snuck into Jabeur’s presser to reclaim a water bottle, Jabeur posed the question back to the world No. 1.

“They asked me how to beat you,” she said of the journalists in attendance. “I couldn’t find an answer…”

Without missing a beat, Swiatek the 20-year-old points to the bottle and says, “Put something in here!”

Unwilling to resort to more sinister tactics, Jabeur retorted, “Obviously the drop shot didn’t work!”

Based on clay-court momentum, Jabeur is Swiatek’s most clear threat to a second Grand Slam title; the two landed in the opposite halves of the women’s singles draw when it was released on Thursday.

Provided both stay properly hydrated, the two are projected to put on another high-quality contest in Paris.