{"id":679274,"date":"2026-06-02T05:57:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/679274\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T05:57:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:57:23","slug":"iga-swiatek-slides-to-french-open-upset-against-surging-marta-kostyuk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/679274\/","title":{"rendered":"Iga \u015awi\u0105tek slides to French Open upset against surging Marta Kostyuk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Follow The Athletic\u2019s live coverage from Day 9 of the French Open.<\/a><\/p>\n

PARIS \u2014 Iga \u015awi\u0105tek is out of the French Open<\/a>, after Marta Kostyuk inflicted her earliest loss there since 2019.<\/p>\n

\u015awi\u0105tek, a four-time French Open<\/a> champion, struggled with her serve and shot selection against Kostyuk, against whom she had a 3-0 career record before Sunday. She served for a tight opening set, but twice gave up a break advantage, before the pressure on her serve bled into her baseline game and the second set turned into a very familiar spiral.<\/p>\n

Kostyuk took the match 7-5, 6-1, to record her 16th consecutive win on clay in 2026.<\/p>\n

The No. 15 seed\u2019s win meant that the relentless upsets at this year\u2019s French Open<\/a> continued, arriving in the women\u2019s draw the past two days after wreaking havoc in the men\u2019s for most of the tournament.<\/p>\n

Kostyuk\u2019s career record against \u015awi\u0105tek was so lopsided that she\u2019d never taken a set off the six-time Grand Slam champion. Kostyuk, 23, has found new life this clay-court season. She won the biggest title of her career at the Madrid Open, which is played at a level just below a Grand Slam, at the start of the month, after picking up a 250-level title on clay at the Rouen Open.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve given myself more space to just create something, to challenge my opponents,\u201d Kostyuk said after the match Sunday. \u201cI think the most important thing I\u2019ve been doing this whole time is really just trying to enjoy. I woke up today in the morning thinking about what an unbelievable day I have to live today, to play on Chatrier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kostyuk doesn\u2019t take days like Sunday for granted. Shortly before her first-round win at Roland Garros over Oksana Selekhmeteva, who recently switched her nationality from Russia to Spain, a missile struck near Kostyuk\u2019s parents\u2019 home in Kyiv during a bombardment from Russia.<\/p>\n

Kostyuk said she\u2019d been crying all morning leading up to that match and wasn\u2019t sure how she\u2019d perform.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were obviously times in the match when I would go in back to thinking about it, because most of the morning I felt sick just for my thought that see if it was 100 meters closer, I probably wouldn\u2019t have a mom and a sister today,\u201d Kostyuk said in a news conference after.<\/p>\n

\"Marta<\/p>\n

\n Marta Kostyuk surged through the second set against the four-time French Open champion. (Clive Brunskill \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The second round now feels like a lifetime ago. Kostyuk is through to her second career Grand Slam quarterfinal, and first at the French Open, after standing strong against \u015awi\u0105tek in cooler, overcast weather Sunday.<\/p>\n

Kostyuk opened the first set swinging with abandon, finding easier power than \u015awi\u0105tek. The Pole broke her twice, and twice, immediately gave the break back thanks to shaky serving. Poor shot selection and a crosscourt forehand she kept drilling wide and long didn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n

A first set full of missed opportunities seemed to undo \u015awi\u0105tek in the second as Kostyuk held steady and patiently imposed her game. When \u015awi\u0105tek\u2019s serving went sideways and she pressed early in rallies, Kostyuk answered with clean groundstrokes and sharp passing shots. She had the mental fortitude to win volley-to-volley exchanges at net and served well enough to get the easy points she needed.<\/p>\n

Her defense put pressure on \u015awi\u0105tek, who before the clay-court swing said she was struggling to remain calm and clear headed in longer rallies. Until Sunday, it seemed like she\u2019d made progress on that issue. Kostyuk exposed how much more work she has to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m feeling shocked, you know. \u2026 Never taken a set off her, I still can\u2019t believe it,\u201d Kostyuk said after, thanking the crowd for their support.<\/p>\n

\u015awi\u0105tek went off court after the first set, as is her habit when she needs a reset. Kostyuk, meantime, stayed loose and danced on the red clay in front of her chair, taking a few practice serves and laughing with the crowd.<\/p>\n

\u015awi\u0105tek won the first game of the second set. Kostyuk breezed through the next six.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow The Athletic\u2019s live coverage from Day 9 of the French Open. PARIS \u2014 Iga \u015awi\u0105tek is out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-679274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}