Iga Swiatek’s recent dominance at the French Open – and the tournaments leading up to it – has led to a regal nickname: the Queen of Clay.
The 23-year-old Pole has won four of the past five Roland Garros women’s singles titles and arrives in Paris as the three-time defending champion.
But this year there are considerable doubts about if she can continue her reign.
For the first time since 2020 – when she claimed her maiden title as an unheralded teenager – Swiatek arrives without winning a WTA tournament in the first five months of the season.
As a result, the former long-time world number one has dropped to fifth in the rankings.
It begs the obvious question: can she still be considered the favourite to lift the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen?
‘My life turned upside down’ – the mental toll
Most players on the WTA Tour would be envious of Swiatek’s record this season.
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She has won 27 of her 36 matches so far, reaching four semi-finals and contesting another three quarter-finals in eight tournaments.
But Swiatek has rarely reached her dominant best over the past few months.
She has often looked tense, tightly wound with emotion, and it has poured out after tough defeats.
Swiatek was inconsolable after losing in the Olympics semi-finals at Roland Garros last summer, saying she cried for “six hours” afterwards.
Two weeks later came a bombshell – Swiatek had failed a doping test.
It was announced in November she had tested positive for heart medication trimetazidine (TMZ) in an out-of-competition sample and was subsequently given a one-month ban after the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) accepted the result was caused by contamination.
“Truth to be told, over the last months, there has always been something,” Swiatek told BBC Sport in Madrid earlier in May.
