Wary Jessica Pegula Braces for French Open Drama With Iga Swiatek No Longer Top Seed

After her triumphant run at the 2024 Roland Garros, Polish superstar Iga Swiatek declared, “I love this place and I wait every year to come back to this court.” Her crowning moment almost slipped away, though last year in the 2nd round, where she narrowly escaped defeat against 4-time GS champion Naomi Osaka in a dramatic final-set tie-break. But can she recreate the magic this year? That remains a burning question! And with her form dipping and a shocking fall to 5th, even Jessica Pegula finds herself on edge ahead of the French Open draw. 

Since February, tennis fans and analysts across the world have eagerly awaited Iga Swiatek’s return to dominance after the AO. After her incredible 37-match winning streak in the spring of 2022, 2025 has been a far cry from that form for her. She has underperformed at nearly every key event: Doha, Indian Wells, Stuttgart, Madrid, and Rome, where she once reigned supreme. 

Her recent defeats have been particularly telling: falling 6-1, 6-1 to Coco Gauff in Madrid and losing 6-1, 7-5 to Danielle Collins, both players she usually overcomes previously. While now, clips of her intense practice sessions with Aryna Sabalenka sparked hopes of a resurgence, Jessica Pegula remains alert, expressing cautious optimism about the French Open draw!

On May 20th, a USA Today video highlighted Jessica Pegula’s comments on Iga’s recent decline in performance and her prowess on clay courts. “It’s interesting because obviously she’s dominated the last, you know, few years now on the clay, always has been known to be an amazing clay court player,” she added. “ I mean in the last year winning, I think Madrid, Rome, and the French is an insane statistics. And I know, maybe this year she obviously hasn’t had the same results. But I mean that’s asking a lot to do the exact same thing,”

Tennis – French Open – Roland Garros, Paris, France – May 28, 2022 Poland’s Iga Swiatek celebrates after winning her third round match against Montenegro’s Danka Kovinic REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

Pegula continued, “That’s, you know, the trouble when you start, when you win a lot, people expect more of it. And it’s not exactly easy to just repeat really good results. So it will be interesting, you know, I think this is the first lowest seed she is been in a while. So that’s mean you know she will fall into somebody, you know, a top-seeded bracket somewhere. And I think it will be interesting to see how the draw plays out,”

Furthermore, she elaborated on the unpredictability of tennis, emphasizing how matches solely determine a player’s performance on the court, and highlighting the intriguing nature of the tournament draws for players like Swiatek. “Tennis is very specific. I feel like with matchups as well, sometimes it can be a really good draw, and can really be difficult draw. Broken kind of breakdown, and someone kind of snakes through. So there are a lot of kind of factors that go into it. But I would say I think she’s still a favorite because of how well she has played at that venue for so long. But I think there is a lot more favorite now than in the past few years for the clay. So it will be kind of cool to see the draw, I think turns out specifically,”

More so, the Polish ace, Iga Swiatek herself took a moment to acknowledge her struggles with consistency throughout the tour.

Iga Swiatek shares her views on what caused her recent form to fall below expectations

The 23-year-old Polish ace returns to Roland Garros with a remarkable legacy: 4 titles in the past 5 years and 3 consecutive victories in Paris. Yet, despite her dominance on the red dirt, 2025 brings unfamiliar doubts. For the first time since her breakthrough win in 2020, Swiatek enters the French Open without a WTA title in the first five months of the season, raising questions about whether she can still be considered the favorite to lift the ‘Coupe Suzanne Lenglen’.

After her early exit in Dubai, she added, “I would blame this performance on the lack of practice.” In Madrid as well, she admitted, “I feel like I wasn’t even in the right place with my feet, you know, before the shots…I’ve been forcing myself to go lower, to be more precise with my feet, because it’s not going by itself.”

Adding to that, in Rome, she shared a deeper insight into her game: “This year I feel like I’m struggling a bit more with my perfectionism… I want to for sure focus on, like, being disciplined on the court and making right choices, not the choices that sometimes pop out in my head, but being really solid…This is my main focus now.”

Still, Swiatek’s early arrival in Paris, already training on Court Philippe Chatrier, signals her intent to reset in Parisian dirt. As the clay-court queen returns to her most successful stage, fans now wonder: Can Roland Garros ignite her spark once more? What do you think?

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