PARIS — On paper, this had all the markings of a straightforward second-round assignment for Iga Swiatek at Roland Garros.
And eventually, the scoreboard got there too.
Swiatek moved into the third round Wednesday with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Sara Bejlek in a match that never truly felt in danger — though it spent long stretches pretending otherwise.
The first set alone lasted 46 minutes. The No. 3-seeded Swiatek was broken twice. She landed just 37 percent of her first serves.
In the second set, the opening game dragged close to 10 minutes by itself, and by the time Swiatek finally held for 1-0, the pair had already crossed the one-hour mark.
In the end, though, Swiatek still found more than enough answers. It was hardly spotless — she finished with 38 unforced errors against 17 winners — but she also broke the No. 35-ranked Bejlek seven times and won eight of 11 points at the net in the 1-hour, 31-minute victory.
Swiatek has now reached the third round at all 24 Grand Slam events played this decade. In the Open Era, only Novak Djokovic produced a longer streak to start a decade, reaching the third round at the first 25 majors of the 2010s.
A few more takeaways from Swiatek’s afternoon in Paris:
- Swiatek is now 27-0 against unseeded opponents at Roland Garros. In the Open Era, only Rafael Nadal and Bjorn Borg faced more unseeded players in Paris without suffering a loss.
- She also became just the ninth woman in the Open Era to reach the third round in each of her first eight main-draw appearances at Roland Garros, joining names such as Chris Evert, Monica Seles and Serena Williams.
- And with her 42nd career win at Roland Garros, Swiatek matched Evert for the most women’s singles victories in Paris through a player’s first 45 main-draw matches of the Open Era.
But the real intrigue may now lie in what’s ahead.
Swiatek is scheduled to face either fellow Polish player Magda Linette or Jelena Ostapenko, the 2017 Roland Garros champion.
And while Ostapenko’s breakthrough title came in Paris nearly a decade ago, the number more recently attached to this potential matchup is the head-to-head record: She is 6-0 against Swiatek, including a clay-court win in Stuttgart last year.
