Kostyuk beats Świątek for the first time, ending the four-time champion’s Roland-Garros earliest exit in seven years
Marta Kostyuk (No 15) beat Iga Świątek (No 3) 7-5, 6-1 on Court Philippe-Chatrier. It’s the four-time Roland-Garros champion’s earliest defeat at the tournament since 2019, and Kostyuk’s first ever win over the Pole in four meetings. Whoever comes through this half of the draw will reach their first Grand Slam final.
Marta Kostyuk, Roland-Garros 2026 | © JB Autissier / PsNewz
Marta Kostyuk, the 15th seed, beat four-time Roland-Garros champion Iga Świątek 7-5, 6-1 on Court Philippe-Chatrier on Sunday to reach the quarter-finals of the tournament for the first time in her career – and to end one of the longest dominance streaks the women’s clay-court game has produced.
It is the first time Świątek has lost before the quarter-finals at Roland-Garros since 2019, the year before her first title. It is also the first set Kostyuk has ever taken from the Pole, in their fourth meeting, after three previous defeats in which she had failed to win more than two games in any set.
But it was in 2021 and 2024. And Kostyuk is not the same player. The match turned on a single game. Świątek served for the opening set at 5-4 and could not close it out, broken to love by a Kostyuk who had spent the previous 50 minutes growing into the contest at the same rate Świątek was losing her own footing.
Kostyuk’s dance
The break held. Kostyuk took the next two games to take the set 7-5. The break period, in the players’ chairs, was extended by Świątek calling a medical timeout. Kostyuk used the pause to dance through a series of shadow steps on her baseline. As lose as she can be, she broke Świątek twice in the second set, did not face a break point on her own serve, and closed out a 6-1 finish that did not look the score it was.
Świątek’s lack of efficiency at the start of the rally was the key of the match. Świątek won only 41 per cent of her own service points across the match, and only 44 per cent of return points against Kostyuk’s second serve.
Kostyuk’s serve effectiveness was 55 per cent. Świątek’s was 42. Serve effectiveness is the composite measure of how often a serve directly produces a winning point or an immediate attacking position.
16-0 on clay in 2026
The four-time champion was not the player who had won 28 of her last 29 matches at this tournament before Sunday afternoon. She was the player Kostyuk progressively forced her to be – pushed off the baseline, made to play balls she did not want to play, decisions she did not want to make.
The win extends Kostyuk’s clay-court winning streak to 16 matches – undefeated on the surface in 2026, with titles in Rouen and Madrid plus a Billie-Jean-King Cup win. It is her sixth top-10 win of the season, her 15th of her career, and the most consequential of any. She has reached the second week of a Grand Slam for the fourth time, and the quarter-finals for the second after the 2024 Australian Open.
She will face the winner of Ukrainian compatriot Elina Svitolina, the seventh seed, against Swiss 11th seed Belinda Bencic in the quarter-finals.
A new Grand Slam finalist
The bigger picture is what just happened to the draw. Świątek had been the heavy favourite to reach the final from her half after the Rybakina exit. With her gone, Aryna Sabalenka – assuming she sees off Naomi Osaka in the round of 16 – stands alone as the only one of the tournament’s top three seeds left in the women’s draw. The women’s title is open in a way it has not been in five years.
One of these six players will play their maiden Grand Slam final: Kostyuk, Svitolina, Bencic, Cirstea, M. Andreeva or Teichmann.
