Caroline Garcia stuns Iga Swiatek in Warsaw for first career win over a No. 1

It wasn’t a great day for the Top 2 players on the WTA rankings on Friday, with both No. 1-ranked Iga Swiatek and No. 2-ranked Anett Kontaveit falling in the quarterfinals of concurrent WTA events in Warsaw, Poland and Prague, Czech Republic, respectively.

Caroline Garcia’s upset of Swiatek was the biggest surprise of the day. Though the Frenchwoman had 17 career wins over Top 10 players and had gone as high as No. 4 in the world herself, she had never beaten a reigning No. 1. And Swiatek isn’t just any No. 1—she had won 39 of her last 40 matches, including her last 18 in a row on clay.

But Garcia was just too good on the day, compiling almost twice as many winners as unforced errors—38 to 22—to record a two-hour, 16-minute, 6-1, 1-6, 6-4 victory in which Swiatek had almost twice as many winners as errors herself, 20 to 12.

“I started very strong, putting a lot of pressure on her,” Garcia told WTATennis.com.

“As soon as I got a bit lower intensity, she came back very strong, and that’s what is happening against a top player. I stayed positive, I kept believing in my game and the way I wanted to play, and the third set was definitely good tennis.”

The Frenchwoman becomes just the fifth woman to beat Swiatek this year, joining Ashleigh Barty (Adelaide semifinals), Danielle Collins (Australian Open semifinals), Jelena Ostapenko (Dubai second round) and Alize Cornet (Wimbledon third round).

Swiatek is now 48-5 this year with six titles, including a Grand Slam (Roland Garros), four WTA 1000s (Doha, Indian Wells, Miami and Rome) and one WTA 500 (Stuttgart).

Before this, Garcia’s biggest win came against a No. 2-ranked Simona Halep in the final of Beijing in 2017. She had been 0-9 in her career against reigning No. 1s.

Earlier in the day, Anastasia Potapova also got the biggest win of her career over No. 2-ranked Kontaveit on the hard courts of Prague, but in much different fashion, barreling past the Estonian in just 49 minutes in the Czech capital, 6-1, 6-1, breaking serve five times and never even facing a break point herself.

Before this, Potapova’s biggest career win came against a No. 5-ranked Angelique Kerber in the first round of Roland Garros back in 2019.

The Russian is now through to her third WTA semifinal in as many weeks, having reached the final four in Lausanne, Switzerland two weeks ago and in Hamburg, Germany last week (where she actually lost to Kontaveit in straight sets).