For the third year running, Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff will butt heads in the latter stages of the French Open, this time in Thursday's tantalising semi-final encounter on Court Philippe-Chatrier.
The reigning champion made incredibly light work of Marketa Vondrousova in the last eight, while Gauff produced a breathtaking fightback to eliminate Ons Jabeur.
Match preview
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Not even the Wimbledon holder was immune from the famed Swiatek bagel, as the inextinguishable Pole achieved her third-straight 6-0 set at Roland-Garros in their quarter-final battle, having taken just 40 minutes to see off Anastasia Potapova in her last-16 whitewash.
Vondrousova did eventually get on the board at the start of the second set, but the Czech had only delayed the inevitable against the laser-focused Swiatek, who ran out a 6-0 6-2 victor with one hour and two minutes on the clock to sail into the semi-finals.
Smashing 25 winners past her towering foe - 21 of which came on the forehand side - and beating away the only break point that Vondrousova managed to fashion, Swiatek more than enhanced her credentials as a potential four-time Roland-Garros champion as she chases a 2022, 2023 and 2024 three-peat.
Furthermore, the world number one has just a solitary defeat on her record from her previous five Grand Slam semi-final contests - going down to Danielle Collins at the 2022 Australian Open - and she has never lost on clay at this stage of any major or WTA 1000 Masters competition.
A 33-2 record at the French Open after 35 matches is inferior only to that of Chris Evert's 34-1 in the Open Era, and even though she survived a monumental scare in her second-round tie with Naomi Osaka, Swiatek has been simply irrepressible ever since.
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However, the 23-year-old can expect her mettle to be tested to the extreme against the comeback queen in Gauff, who was powerless to defend against a steady sequence of Jabeur winners in the first set of their quarter-final, one which captivated the audience throughout the one hour and 57 minutes.
As the third seed began to grow in confidence in her aggressive approach, though, it was Jabeur who had no answers to her venomous ball-striking, despite saving one match point with the most audacious drop shot, akin to the panenka penalties of Karim Benzema vs. Manchester City and Achraf Hakimi vs. Spain.
The Tunisian would live to rue a poorly-executed overhead smash on Gauff's third chance to close out the contest, though, as the American protege triumphed 4-6 6-2 6-3 to reach her third-straight Grand Slam semi-final, at the tender age of 20 years old.
Saving six of the eight break points she faced while clinically converting four of her five on Jabeur's serve, Gauff is now just the second female player to register at least 20 Roland-Garros wins before turning 21 since 2000, joining upcoming opponent Swiatek in that exclusive club.
Speaking of remarkable age-related feats, not since 2006/2007 Maria Sharapova has a younger player progressed to at least three successive Grand Slam semi-finals, and should she buck a recent trend against the champion, either Mirra Andreeva, Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina or Jasmine Paolini will be waiting with the championship on the line.
Tournament so far
Iga Swiatek:
First round: vs. Leolia Jeanjean 6-1 6-2
Second round: vs. Naomi Osaka 7-6[1] 1-6 7-5
Third round: vs. Marie Bouzkova 6-4 6-2
Round of 16: vs. Anastasia Potapova 6-0 6-0
Quarter-final: vs. Marketa Vondrousova 6-0 6-2
Coco Gauff:
First round: vs. Julia Avdeeva 6-1 6-1
Second round: vs. Tamara Zidansek 6-3 6-4
Third round: vs. Dayana Yastremska 6-2 6-4
Round of 16: vs. Elisabetta Cocciaretto 6-1 6-2
Quarter-final: vs. Ons Jabeur 4-6 6-2 6-3
Head To Head
Italian Open (2024) - Semi-finals: Swiatek wins 6-4 6-3
WTA Finals (2023) - Round Robin: Swiatek wins 6-0 7-5
China Open (2023) - Semi-finals: Swiatek wins 6-2 6-3
Cincinnati Open (2023) - Semi-finals: Gauff wins 7-6[2] 3-6 6-4
French Open (2023) - Quarter-finals: Swiatek wins 6-4 6-2
Dubai Tennis Championships (2023) - Semi-finals: Swiatek wins 6-4 6-2
WTA Finals (2022) - Round Robin: Swiatek wins 6-3 6-0
San Diego Open (2022) - Quarter-finals: Swiatek wins 6-0 6-3
French Open (2022) - Final: Swiatek wins 6-1 6-3
Miami Open (2022) - Last 16: Swiatek wins 6-3 6-1
Italian Open (2021) - Semi-finals: Swiatek wins 7-6[3] 6-3
Many an intriguing battle has already been fought between the fledgling Swiatek and Gauff - 11 to be exact - but the world number one has come up trumps in all but one of them, losing in last year's Cincinnati Open semi-finals.
Gauff required three sets to see off the Pole on that occasion, though, while each of Swiatek's staggering 10 victories over the American have been achieved in two, including the 2022 Roland-Garros final and 2023 quarter-finals.
The pair shall also reunite mere weeks after Swiatek eased to a 6-4 6-3 triumph in the last four of the Italian Open, and the world number one has also posted three bagel sets against her younger foe, most recently in the group stage of the 2023 WTA Finals.
We say: Swiatek to win in two sets
Gauff impressively won 64% of points behind her second serve against Jabeur and is going to great lengths to improve her game in that regard, but such first-serve frailties will be brutally exposed by Swiatek, who is ruthlessly swatting aside every obstacle in her path.
The four-time Grand Slam winner was mostly unfazed in her Rome triumph over Gauff either, so an 11th straight-sets win over the reigning US Open champion and a ticket to the final is surely the only outcome.
Ben Knapton
