“I have to say congratulations to you, Iga,” said the 12th-seeded Paolini, a 28-year-old from Italy appearing in her first Slam final. “I think to play you here is the toughest challenge in this sport.”After a scare in the second round last week against Naomi Osaka, when Swiatek needed to save a match point, this represented a fifth straight lopsided win. Swiatek took every set in that span and only ceded a total of 17 games.
During Saturday’s postmatch ceremony, Swiatek was flanked by a pair of women who each won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. Evert said before this French Open that she thinks Swiatek could eventually surpass her women’s record of seven championships in Paris. Before the final began, a loud chant of “Let’s go, Jasmine! Let’s go!” arose from two rows of Paolini’s supporters in the lower bowl of the stands, each one wearing a T-shirt in one of the colors of the Italian flag: green, white or red. They would reprise that song, in English, interspersing it with claps.