Let's talk about when Iga Swiatek got her A-game back | Roland Garros Wrap, Day 8

Stream every match from Roland Garros on the Tennis Channel app, each day after 11 p.m. ET. 3 to Stream, our daily wrap of the action in Paris, highlights you three matches you'll want to read about—and then replay.

Pinpointing the moment when Swiatek got her A-game back

Iga Swiatek d. Elena Rybakina 1-6, 6-3, 7-5

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If you want to get an idea of how far out of this match the three-time defending champ was after nine games, you only have to hear a small sample of what was coming out of the commentators’ mouths around that time.

“This is just total domination,” Lindsay Davenport said of Rybakina’s performance to that point.

“This is about as perfect as you can play a tennis match,” Alex Faust agreed. “She’s making the three-time defending champion look silly.”

There was no arguing with them. Rybakina, who had a point for an opening-set bagel, was serving lights out, and was just as dialed in on both of her ground strokes. She gave Swiatek no room to breath. The few times Iga had a little time to swing out on a forehand, she did what he has been doing all spring: She sent the ball flying long. There was little reason, based on Swiatek’s record so far this year, and her level the last couple of weeks, to believe that she was going to mount any sort of a comeback.

But as so often happens when a top player is on the ropes, everything changed when her opponent opened the door a crack. Serving at 2-1, Rybakina started with a doubt fault. Then she swung and missed at a forehand for 15-30. Swiatek talked to her camp and adjusted her service position; it was time for Plan B. At deuce, a slice forehand drew an error from Rybakina. At break point, the door suddenly opened wide, when she dunked the easiest of high forehand volleys into the net. Swiatek was even at 2-2.

Still, she didn’t walk through the door right away. Her confidence had been too low for too long for that. At 2-2, Swiatek put a backhand in the net, sent a forehand wide, shouted at her camp, and went down break point. That was the moment—finally—when she stopped playing it safe, and found her old clay-queen game. It started with two full-cut backhands that Rybakina couldn’t handle.

Davenport noticed the change right away.

“Pretty fearless tennis from Iga,” she said, “accelerating on all the groundstrokes.”

It took 10 minutes, but Swiatek held. By the time the game was over, she was her old self again. No more doubts, no more deceleration, no more wild misses.

She would need her best, too, because Rybakina didn’t go away. The two lifted their levels together, extended the rallies, and played a dynamite third set. Swiatek won because her best was a little better than Rybakina’s. From 4-5 down in the third, she held at love, hit a good backhand return and a winning backhand pass to break for 6-5, and held with a series of confident forehands for the win.

“I think I needed that kind of win to feel these feelings that I’m able to win under pressure, and even if it’s not going the right way, you know, still turn the match around to win it,” Swiatek said. “For sure it’s a great confirmation for me.

“I’m happy that I fought, and I also problem-solved on court.”

Swiatek’s Roland Garros-winning form, which we were once so accustomed to, felt like a revelation today.

Zheng found her service rhythm, and followed it to a three-set win

Zheng Qinwen d. Liudmila Samsonova 7-6 (5), 1-6, 6-3

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Do you sometimes wonder if we give the serve short shrift?

Tennis analysts will run through a grab bag of reasons to explain why a match turned out the way it did. They can range from the players’ past histories in big moments, to their comfort on a certain surface, to their recent form, to where they’re standing to return. While all of those elements matter, the serve is where everything starts. It’s more interesting to speculate about a player’s mental state, but no shot builds up someone’s confidence, or brings it down, like the serve.

Zheng’s three-set win over Samsonova on Sunday could be Exhibit A in that argument. In the second set, Zheng made roughly 50% of her first serves, and lost 6-1. Once the rallies began, Samsonova was the stronger player as she controlled the middle of the court with her forehand. The match appeared to be Samsonova’s to lose.

That is, until Zheng rediscovered her serving rhythm at the start of the third. She still wasn’t better in the rallies, and she still made her share of errors and nearly gave up a lead. But from that point on, she had her serve to get her out of jail, and she had the confidence that comes from knowing you have that card up your sleeve. She upped her first-serve percentage into the 70s, and finished with 10 aces. The last of them came when she was down 15-30 while serving for the match.

Zheng won Olympic gold at Roland Garros last year, but this will be her first quarterfinal appearance there. She sounds excited at the prospect.

“I am super happy, honestly,” she said. “There’s not many words can describe my emotions because I’ve been trying every year, and that’s the real first time for me to be in quarterfinal in Roland Garros.

“Today the match was just, you know, fight. There’s nothing more I can say.”

It was “just fight,” but it was also about who fought smarter. In the crucial games at the end of the third set, Samsonova overplayed her hand and made errors—she would finish with 42 of them, again 28 winners. She lost a match that she could, and maybe should, have won. Zheng did the opposite. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that she found her serve when she needed it. Unlike Samsonova, Zheng knows what it’s like to win at this venue, and, at 22, she knows she can win here again.

Paolini couldn’t quite stop a gathering Svitolina storm

Elina Svitolina d. Jasmine Paolini 4-6 7-6 (6), 6-1

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Score-wise, everything seemed to be under control, and going the way it should, when she reached her first match point at 5-4 in the second set. She had won nine straight matches on clay. She had won her biggest title two weeks ago in Rome. She was last year’s runner-up in Paris, and looked to be in her comfort zone there again. She showed her speed—with her legs and her racquet—as she flowed over the clay and snapped off angled winners.

One more point, and she was into the quarterfinals again.

Under the surface, though, things couldn’t have been quite as calm. A few minutes earlier, Paolini had led 6-4, 4-1, and was cruising. But instead of the Italian relaxing and hitting out with a lead, it was the Ukrainian who had done those things. With nothing to lose, Svitolina loosened up, swung bigger, and took charge of the rallies. She broke for 3-4, and broke again for 4-5.

Which meant that Paolini, with Svitolina getting closer in the rearview mirror, probably felt the pressure to close her out at 5-4. It showed. On her first match point, she overhit a forehand long. On her second, she tried too hard to change directions, taking a backhand above her shoulder and sending it down the line—and wide.

To her credit, Paolini didn’t panic. She took the set to a tiebreaker, and reached a third match point at 6-5. By then, though, Svitolina had caught and passed her in the confidence and shot-making departments; the score still favored Paolini, but momentum favored Svitolina. She saved a third match point by closing out a long and hard-fought rally with a volley winner. Svitolina has caught Paolini just before she crossed the finish line; she would lose just one more game.

“The match was really close in the second,” Svitolina said. “Yeah, I knew that I had to try to give myself a chance to come back into the match and just leave it all there. I tried to really stick to my game plan, tried to stay in the match, keep fighting, keep doing, you know, aggressive things on the court.”

For Paolini, the pill was bitter, but maybe there was still some satisfaction lingering from Rome. She sounded resigned afterward, but not destroyed.

“I think we played a great match,” she said. “I had my chances. She played well; I didn’t. I didn't take it. You know, it’s tennis, so it’s hard to accept, but I have to.”