Iga Swiatek admitted that Coco Gauff did not make life easy for her in her French Open 2023 quarterfinal match on Wednesday, June 7 on Court Philippe Chatrier. The 22-year-old won the match 6-4, 6-2 and kept alive her hopes of successfully defending the women’s singles title at Roland Garros. 

Swiatek started the match by breaking Gauff’s serve, but Gauff returned the favour to make it 3-3 in the first set. At 4-4, the set seemed to be going right down to the wire, but Swiatek earned another break to close out the set. 

At 3-2 in the second set, Swiatek earned her third break of the match and from there on, she did not look back. 

“For sure it was not easy, especially the first set, it was really tight… I am really happy that I was able to work with it and win this match,” Swiatek was quoted as saying after the match. 

I did not feel rusty today: Iga Swiatek

Apart from earning four breaks of serve, Swiatek churned out 19 winners and was also helped by the fact that Gauff made 23 unforced errors. The 22-year-old Swiatek said that she did not get ruffled by Gauff’s attacking gameplay in the opening set. 

"It happens sometimes in tournaments where I was winning matches pretty easily and then I just continued, you know. I feel like in terms of having these couple of tougher situations and really important points, you're just not going to feel rusty when it happens again. I did not feel rusty today anyway, but it's good to have the experience," Swiatek added. 

Swiatek is now set to face Brazil’s Beatriz Haddad Maia in the semis. Earlier on Wednesday, Haddad Maia became the first from her country to advance to the Roland Garros semis in the Open Era after he defeated Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur in three sets at the Chatrier.