Iga Swiatek is ready to embrace her new-found stardom after becoming Poland’s first singles grand slam champion.
The rock and roll fan has blasted her way through the draw and swept to the trophy without dropping a set, her 6-4 6-1 victory over Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin in the final the icing on the cake.
When her last whipped forehand flew past Kenin, Swiatek put her hand over her mouth in sheer disbelief before heading off to celebrate with her support team in the stands.
The only time she appeared flustered was during her on-court interview, the 19-year-old saying: “I don’t know what’s going on. It’s overwhelming for me. It’s crazy.”
At 54 in the world, Swiatek is the lowest-ranked woman ever to win the French Open and the youngest winner since Monica Seles in 1992.
Her success has been celebrated widely back home, while former greats of the game have been falling over themselves to predict a glowing future.
Swiatek is the latest young woman to win a slam title – seven of the last eight have been claimed by players aged 23 or under – and most have found the subsequent rise in pressure and expectation hard to deal with.
The teenager said: “I’m just proud of myself. I’ve done a great job the past two weeks. I wasn’t expecting to win this trophy. It’s obviously amazing for me. It’s a life-changing experience.
“I need to come back home first, see what’s going on in Poland. I know it’s going to be crazy. I think I’m going to get used to that, it’s not going to be a problem for me. I didn’t have problem with getting attention, with people surrounding me.
“I really appreciate all the support I got during the whole two weeks. Even though I wasn’t on my phone and I wasn’t answering every person, I know that the whole country was behind me and they all believed in me.”
Swiatek’s results this fortnight made hype inevitable, not least her dismantling of top seed Simona Halep in the fourth round for the loss of just three games – indeed, she only lost 28 games in seven matches.
She handled it with the nonchalance of youth. The Wimbledon junior champion just two years ago, Swiatek cited keeping her expectations low as the reason she was able to handle her first slam final with such aplomb.
She said: “I knew it was going to be tough in the final. I didn’t want to stress a lot about it, so I just told myself that I don’t care and I tried to believe in that. I think at the end, I really just enjoyed the moment.”
Among the current crop of young slam champions, Swiatek’s good friend Naomi Osaka is the only one who has so far been able to go on and win more titles.
Swiatek hopes she can follow in Osaka’s footsteps, saying: “I think the biggest change for me is going to be to be consistent. I think this is what women’s tennis is struggling with.
“That’s why we have so many new grand slam winners because we are not as consistent as Rafa (Nadal), Roger (Federer), and Novak (Djokovic). That’s why my goal is going to be to be consistent. It’s going to be really hard to achieve that.”