The Polish world No 1, a three-time champion at Roland Garros who tends to be queen of all she surveys on her beloved red clay, had conceded just eight games in three matches en route to her quarter-final meeting with Beatriz Haddad Maia at the Madrid Open. So when Swiatek pocketed four of the first five games against the 11th-seeded Brazilian, the impression was very much one of business as usual.

Then Haddad Maia reeled off five straight games to seize the opening set, and we were left reaching for the record books. When was the last time anyone had won five successive games against Swiatek, let alone on a clay court? Paula Badosa achieved the feat at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, but that was in another lifetime, when the Pole was ranked eighth and her ascent to the top of the game was still in its early stages. 

Things happen in tennis matches, and no player is immune to the kind of dip that saw Swiatek finish the opening set with 13 unforced errors, almost half her final tally of 27. But to put Haddad Maia’s success in context, at last year’s Qatar Open Swiatek won the entire tournament for the loss of only five games. So this was a collector’s item. The 22-year-old is more accustomed to inflicting such pain than sustaining it, a fact she demonstrated in the previous round against Spain’s Sara Sorribes Tormo, where she lost the opening game and then won the next dozen in a row. Were we on the verge of an upset?

Well, no. The response from Swiatek was devastating, an anything-you-can-do run of eight consecutive games that paved the way for a 4-6, 6-0, 6-2 victory and a semi-final appointment with Madison Keys, who later saw off Ons Jabeur in another wildly fluctuating contest. It was enough to make you think she was affronted.

“In the first set, for sure, there were ups and downs,” said Swiatek. “I made some decisions that weren’t really right for the moment. But I’m happy that I came back in the second and I could reset and get back to a solid game.

“It’s not that easy to choose the right solution, because you feel differently most times, you won’t get the same situations. 

“It took me a while today to find the right solution. Sometimes it can just click easily after a couple of points, and sometimes you really need to dig deep and try, try, try for 10 minutes and then it’s going to maybe click.”

For all Swiatek’s success on red dirt, it is no secret that she is less comfortable at the Caja Mágica, which lies roughly 650 metres above sea level, making it the fastest stop on the European clay swing. Madrid remains the only significant clay-court title to elude her grasp and, as Haddad Maia crushed returns from inside the baseline and hammered her flat, penetrating groundstrokes into the corners, it was easy to see why she has troubled Swiatek in the past, defeating her at the Canadian Open in 2022 and holding a set point in a tightly contested French Open semi-final last summer. 

The Brazilian’s big forehand and heavy southpaw serve are tailor made for conditions in which the thinner air allows the ball to travel more quickly. Once Swiatek stopped leaking errors, however, she quickly established unstoppable momentum. It bodes well for her meeting with Keys, another player who has overpowered her in the past. Like Swiatek, the American was required to come from behind against Jabeur, the champion of two years ago, finally prevailing 0-6, 7-5, 6-1 after losing the first eight games of the match.

“Obviously [it’s] not normal to go down 8-0 and then start playing tennis, but I was able to really reset and relax after getting that first game,” said Keys, 29, who beat Coco Gauff in the previous round.

“At one point it was like, ‘Wow, this is embarrassing. We’ve got to figure something out.’ But I think eventually I was just, like, ‘I’m just going to start going for things. I’m going to start just trying to focus on myself and my game, just try to get into every single game and just try to make things competitive.’ Once I did that, it felt like the momentum switched really quickly.”

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Played at roughly 650 metres above sea level, Madrid is the only significant clay-court title to have eluded Swiatek’s grasp, an omission that is often put down to the speed with which the ball travels through the air in the Spanish capital. The received wisdom is that such an environment favours more attacking players, yet the Pole is no slouch in that regard, and so far it is the pace of her own destructive ball-striking that has done the damage.

Swiatek, who was beaten by Aryna Sabalenka in last year’s final, has dropped just eight games en route to the quarter-finals, and while she struggled to find her range initially against Sorribes Tormo, her relentless aggression and consistency ensured there was never any danger of her bring drawn into the kind of clay-court dogfight on which the 55th-ranked Spaniard thrives. 

A break in the opening game augured well for Sorribes Tormo, but her relatively passive play from the back of the court emphasised why she has failed to win a set in any of her four meetings with Swiatek. 

As Sorribes Tormo lofted up high, spinning moonballs that Swiatek battered into the corners at a lower, pacier trajectory, the baseline exchanges frequently resembled clay pigeon shooting more than clay-court tennis. Retreating deep behind the baseline, the Spaniard ceded too much ground to the world’s best player, enabling Swiatek to step in and patiently open up the angles. A final tally of 27 winners to just three from Sorribes Tormo, who won barely a quarter of her service points, summed up the Pole’s supremacy.

“I adjusted well to what Sara was playing, because she’s a tricky opponent and you can get in trouble quickly, so I’m happy with how efficient and solid I was,” said Swiatek. 

 “She plays with a lot of spin and it’s hard to close the rallies. So I wanted to be patient, but on the other hand intense, and also not let her use my power, because basically that’s what she does.”

At times, the greatest threat to Swiatek’s progress appeared to be Swiatek herself. Such was the case when she overran a lob in the fifth game, scuttling back to the baseline so rapidly that she lost her bearings and could only watch helplessly as the ball landed a foot or so in front of her. For the most part, however, the Pole was imperious, crunching untouchable forehands, winning backhand-to-backhand duels, showing her range with a feathery drop shot and making decisive ventures to the net. 

Beatriz Haddad Maia, who saw off fifth-seeded Maria Sakkari 6-4, 6-4 to extend her unbeaten record against the Greek to four matches, should offer a sterner test in the quarter-finals. With her heavy southpaw serve and big forehand, the Brazilian undoubtedly possesses the firepower required to trouble Swiatek, as she demonstrated by defeating the Pole at the 2022 Canadian Open and running her close in the second set of the French Open semi-finals last year. On this form, however, the top seed will take some stopping.

“Bia is a great player with a big serve and a lot of variety and touch on court, so there are plenty of things to look out for, but it doesn’t make sense for me to focus on that,” said Swiatek.

“For sure I’m going to prepare tactically; my coach is going to watch her recent matches, and we’ll also learn from some matches that we played before.

“I’ll focus on myself and I’ll be ready.”

Of that, there can be no doubt. Swiatek, who lost just five points in the second set against Sorribes Tormo, appears ready for anything. Flying at altitude, it will surely take something special to bring her back down to Earth.

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That has been easier said than done in a season when Sabalenka, who won her first major six months ago at the Australian Open, has claimed more wins than any other player on the WTA Tour. But in one of the most dramatic matches of the year, the unseeded Muchova produced one of the biggest upsets of the year, saving a match point at 2-5 in the final set as she used her guile and variety to claim a 7-6 (7-5), 6-7 (5-7), 7-5 victory.

In her first grand slam final, the Czech world No 43 will face Iga Swiatek, the world No 1 and defending champion, who avenged her loss to Beatriz Haddad Maia last year in Toronto with a 6-2, 7-6 (9-7) win. 

Muchova, a former world No 19, has previous when it comes to toppling big names. Two years ago, she defeated Ashleigh Barty, then ranked No 1, en route to the Australian Open semi-finals. She followed up a couple of months later by beating Naomi Osaka, the world No 2 at the time, in Madrid. Those results, and a few more like them. meant Muchova came into her meeting with Sabalenka undefeated against top-three players. 

Even so, few would have predicted this latest milestone. The 26-year-old, who has been plagued by injuries throughout her career, arrived in Paris still looking to make up lost ground in the rankings after returning from a seven-month layoff with an abdominal problem in March of last year only to roll an ankle at Roland Garros. Muchova fell out of the top 100 in the months that followed, dipping as low as No 235 in the world. Yet, as her first-round victory over Maria Sakkari demonstrated, she remains a richly gifted player, and against Sabalenka she put her extensive repertoire to good use, absorbing the Belarusian’s power with her sliced backhand, disrupting her rhythm with drop shots and frequent forays to the net, and serving with precision and authority. 

Regardless of which way the final goes, Muchova is now guaranteed a long overdue place in the top 10 – not bad for a player whose serial injury travails led some medics to warn she might have to give up the sport entirely.

“There have been many moments, many lows, I would say, from one injury to another,” said Muchova. “When I missed the Australian Open last year, and I was in a pretty bad state healthy-wise, I was working out a lot to try to get back. 

“You never know. Some doctors told me, ‘Maybe you’ll not do sport any more.’ But I always kept positive in my mind and tried to work and do all the exercises to be able to come back.”

Muchova’s determination served her well down the stretch against Sabalenka. The final games were a mixture of the brilliant and the bizarre. On the one hand, once she had slotted away a forehand behind a fine first serve to stave off match point, Muchova barely put a foot wrong. Defying cramp, she laid the groundwork for a subsequent break by rifling a huge return winner down the line, and continued to play with the same calm authority she had shown throughout. At the same time, Sabalenka inexplicably went into a fatal tailspin, her game deserting her as she won just four of the last 24 points.

“I think after I lost my serve [at 5-3 in the decider],” replied Sabalenka, when asked where she felt the match began to slip away. 

“I was serving for the match, so I think after that game she kind of stepped in and started playing a little bit more aggressive, and I kind of lost my rhythm. I wasn’t there.”

Sabalenka’s late dropoff was in stark contrast to the first two sets, where the quality on display from both women was frequently mesmerising. It was a collision of power and artistry, Sabalenka determined to bulldoze her way through the Czech’s defences, Muchova doing all she could to disrupt the Belarusian’s rhythm and play the match on her own terms.

Yet it was also so much more. Each player showed a willingness to take on the other at their own game. When Muchova attempted to break up the pace with a sliced backhand early in the first set, Sabalenka moved forward and feathered away a drop shot. When Sabalenka fashioned a break point with a crushing return, Muchova replied with an ace. It was cat and mouse stuff, the Czech testing Sabalenka’s patience and mental strength with her athletic defending, forever forcing her to make one more ball, even as Sabalenka attempted to overwhelm Muchova with her sustained intensity and strength of will.

Such tennis has been par for the course for Sabalenka over the past fortnight. For a player who had never advanced beyond the third round of the French Open before last week, the Belarusian cut through the lower half of the women’s draw as though to the manner born. A highly anticipated meeting with Swiatek began to look inevitable, particularly once Elena Rybakina withdrew from the tournament with illness, but a reprise of the Stuttgart and Madrid finals, which ended with one title apiece, was not to be.

One had to wonder whether the various controversies in which Sabalenka became embroiled over the fortnight contributed to her downfall. She was involved in politically-charged matches against Marta Kostyuk and Elina Svitolina, both from Ukraine, and twice declined to attend open press conferences after a Ukrainian reporter pressed her to clarify her stance on Russia’s invasion, which has been supported by Belarus. Sabalenka acknowledged that her reserves were depleted, but attributed her tiredness to the physical demands of clay-court tennis rather than politics.

“I’m really exhausted right now,” said Sabalenka. “But I think it’s only because I lost this match. It’s a very, very tough, tough match for me to lose. I think it’s normal to feel exhausted after two weeks of playing non-stop and playing on the clay. It’s always physical matches.”

Sabalenka’s defeat meant Swiatek needed to defeat Haddad Maia to retain the No 1 ranking, a task the Pole accomplished only after withstanding a late fightback from the never-say-die 14th seed.

Haddad Maia has been the master escapologist of these championships, recovering from a set down in three straight matches, and when she outrallied Swiatek to bring up a set point at 6-5 in the second-set tiebreak, she looked to be on her way once more. What the 27-year-old Brazilian would have given at that stage for one of the laser-like forehand winners with which she frequently tormented Swiatek. Instead, a meek effort nose-dived into the net and the chance was gone, the world No 1 shaking off her passivity to reach a third final in four years.

“I’m just pretty happy to be in the final again,” said Swiatek. “It was a tough match, and especially [in the] second set, every point counted. It was stressful in some moments, so I’m happy that I was really solid and I was able to close it in the tiebreaker.”

Swiatek has now won 13 matches in a row at Roland Garros, and has yet to drop a set at this year’s tournament. In Muchova, she will once again face an opponent who won their only previous meeting, although much has changed since that day in Prague four years ago. A confirmed admirer of the Czech’s game, Swiatek knows what to expect in Saturday’s final.

“I played many practices with her since 2019, and I also watch her actually more than most of the players,” said Swiatek. “Just a coincidence, but it happened.

“I really like her game, honestly. I really respect her, and she’s a player who can do anything. She has great touch. She can also speed up the game. She plays with that kind of, I don’t know, freedom in her movements. And she has a great technique.

“So I watched her matches and I feel like I know her game pretty well. But obviously in matches, it’s a little bit different and I’ll be ready no matter what.”

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Early in the second set of an entertaining quarter-final, Gauff followed a drop shot into the net. It was a tactic to which the American sixth seed made frequent recourse on an afternoon when she explored various ways to unsettle the top seed and, having just botched an almost identical opportunity that would have earned her three break points, Gauff showed that she was determined not to repeat the same mistake twice.

On the first occasion, Gauff seemed to pull out of a backhand drive when she spied the defending champion bearing down on the net, a late change of heart that resulted in a tame lob sailing over the baseline. Was she trying to avoid hitting her opponent from point-blank range? Whatever the case, this time around the 19-year-old held nothing back, blasting a full-bore drive volley straight into the upper right thigh of Swiatek, who toppled backwards on to the clay. 

Gauff may have succeeded in knocking the world No 1 off her feet, but she ultimately came no closer to knocking her out of the tournament than she did 12 months ago, when Swiatek crushed her in the final to win her second title. This was undoubtedly an improvement on last summer’s showing, yet the manner of Swiatek’s 6-4, 6-2 win was barely less emphatic, the 22-year-old reeling off eight of the final 10 games to set up a semi-final meeting with Beatriz Haddad Maia, who recovered from a set down to defeat Ons Jabeur, the seventh seed, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-1.

“I don’t really know if that was her only option or not,” smiled Swiatek when asked about the incident. “But I know Coco is a nice person, and she wouldn’t mean it. Nothing personal. It happens.”

Gauff, who immediately raised her hands in apology, said she had not intended to hit Swiatek, but admitted that her decision-making was influenced by her previous miss. The teenager also made the valid point that Swiatek, rather than retreating, stood her ground at the net, effectively making her fair game.  

“I mean, the last point I lost because I was avoiding the… I kind of shanked the backhand,” said Gauff. “The next one, I said, ‘If I get it again, I’m going to hit my target.’ It wasn’t her. I didn’t try to hit her. I was just trying to hit the ball hard in the middle of the court, and it happened to hit her obviously.”

“I apologised after, but I think she knows that’s part of the game. If you hit a bad ball and you decide to run to the net, there’s always a risk that you get hit, and there’s always the risk that the person might miss trying to avoid you. 

“It worked the first time. The second time it didn’t work. But if I was in her position, I wouldn’t be mad at me either because she ran forward. I think when I said sorry, she shook her head, and we had a mutual understanding that that was the only shot I really had.”

In many ways, the moment encapsulated Gauff’s performance on an afternoon when the soundness of her approach was not always matched by the quality of her execution. Drawing Swiatek forward with drop shots made sense, given that the Pole is neither as comfortable nor as dextrous at the net as Gauff, a double grand slam finalist and world No 3 in doubles. Targeting Swiatek’s second serve, while hardly a novel tactic, was equally pragmatic.

Yet the fact remains that the top seed won six of the 10 points she played at the net, and claimed 75% of her second serve points. Gauff’s tally of 23 unforced errors, many of which came as she blasted returns wide or long, did not help. Neither did the punishment Swiatek meted out to Gauff’s second serve, behind which the American had a success rate of just 29% in the second set.

More successful, in the early stages at least, was Gauff’s policy of breaking up the rallies with high topspin balls that hung in the air, devoid of pace and subject to the vagaries of a swirling wind. It was a Swiatek miss on one such ball that enabled Gauff to cancel out an early break, and it was no coincidence that 12 of the Pole’s 15 unforced errors came in the opening set, when she was still coming to terms with her opponent’s tactical curveball. 

“I was surprised, because when I was playing against the wind, sometimes these forehands were just stopping, and you had to work twice to kind of get to them,” said Swiatek. 

“I don’t know if that was her tactic or it just happened because of the wind. I’m happy that I managed to get the win and be aggressive anyway.”

Swiatek will need to continue in that vein against Haddad Maia, for whom it has been a Roland Garros of firsts. In her first grand slam quarter-final, the Brazilian world No 14 played her first match on Court Philippe Chatrier, defeating Jabeur to become the first Brazilian woman to reach a grand slam semi-final since Maria Bueno at the 1968 US Open. The 27-year-old will now break into the world’s top 10 for the first time.

Haddad Maia may be breaking new ground, but there was nothing new about the way she reached her latest milestone. Having recovered from match point down against Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova and won the longest women’s match of the season against Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain, Haddad Maia once again came from behind to seal victory. Staring down the barrel in the 11th game of the second set, where she faced two break points that would have left Jabeur serving for the match, Haddad Maia held firm and went on to level the match on a tiebreak. The Brazilian dominated the decider.

“I think a tennis match is like a marathon, it’s not a 100-metres race,” said Haddad Maia. “I’m very patient and I never give up, so I wait for the moment because I know that my level is high. 

“Even if I’m not playing well, or even if I’m missing a few shots one moment, the tennis will appear, and I’ll have my opportunity to go for it.”

Swiatek, who was defeated in her only previous meeting with Haddad Maia last year in Toronto, is alive to the threat posed by a player who feels she has “nothing to lose”.

“She’s a fighter, and she showed even today that she’s fighting until the last ball,” said Swiatek. “It pays off.”

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A year ago, the Brazilian world No 14 won the first tour-level titles of her career in Nottingham and Birmingham. She has since reached a first WTA 1000 final in Toronto, made a debut appearance at the WTA Finals alongside Kazakhstan’s Anna Danilina, and reached the quarter-finals or better in Portoroz, Tokyo, Talinn, Adelaide, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Stuttgart and Rome. Along the way, she has beaten Iga Swiatek, Elena Rybakina and Maria Sakkari. 

It is a formidable body of work, one that has confirmed the 27-year-old as the finest female player to come out of Brazil since Maria Bueno, who won three Wimbledon titles and four US Open crowns between 1959 and 1966. Yet there has been one glaring hole in her resumé: an inability to compile a grand slam run commensurate with her talent. Improbably, Haddad Maia arrived in Paris having never previously advanced beyond the second round of a major in singles.

It has been a heavy cross to bear for a player regularly mentioned in the same breath as Bueno and Gustavo Kuerten, who won the first of his three titles in Paris in 1997, shortly after Haddad Maia’s first birthday. But the landscape has altered over the past nine days at Roland Garros. On Monday, Haddad Maia survived an epic contest against Spain’s Sara Sorribes Tormo to become the first Brazilian quarter-finalist in Paris since Bueno in 1968. 

In a triumph of industry, self-belief and determination, the 14th seed recovered from a set and a double break down to prevail 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 7-5 in three hours and 51 minutes. It was the longest tour-level match of the year – eclipsing by 10 minutes the mark set by Haddad Maia and Anhelina Kalinina in Rome last month – and third longest main draw women’s singles match at the French Open in the open era.

“It’s a dream,” said Haddad Maia. “I think since I started to play tennis, me, my family, and everybody from my team, I was dreaming and working very hard for this moment.  

“I’m very proud for what I did today, and also the last matches, because I had to fight a lot.”

That is putting it mildly. Haddad Maia recovered from match point down in the previous round against Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova, and this was the third successive match in which she has been extended to a deciding set. To give her achievement some context, it took the Brazilian only 13 minutes less to subdue Sorribes Tormo than Swiatek has spent on court in four matches, although admittedly that statistic is somewhat skewed by Lesia Tsurenko’s retirement with illness just 31 minutes into her fourth-round meeting with the Pole.

Had she been able to convert any of the three match points she held in the ninth game of the decider, Haddad Maia would have been home and hosed almost half an hour earlier.

But Sorribes Tormo, a player of ferocious intensity and competitive appetite, is not noted for making life easy on her opponents. Neither woman had previously made the fourth round of a major and, with so much at stake, a meeting of two of the tour’s most courageous competitors was never likely to be a straightforward affair.

So it proved. After a blistering start by Haddad Maia, Sorribes Tormo chiselled away at a 5-2 first-set deficit, making ball after ball, keeping the Brazilian away from the centre of the court with the spin and penetration of her forehand, revelling in the chance to ensnare her opponent in the kind of physical, mental and emotion marathon that is her forte. 

A first set of six breaks culminated with a tiebreak in which Sorribes Tormo won a sequence of brutal, extended rallies. When went on to edge a 10-minute battle to break again at the start of the second set, combining some dazzling defensive play with powerful counterpunching, audacious drop shots and even a brilliant lob volley, the tide looked to be turning decisively in her favour.

That impression deepened when Sorribes Tormo battled to a 12-minute hold before stealing into the net to seize a second break with a drop volley. By this point, the 6ft Haddad Maia was being forced to play most of the rallies from above head height as Sorribes Tormo sought to nullify the power of the Brazilian, who had resolved that attack was the best form of defence, by throwing up looped topspin balls. 

But Haddad Maia, who was only 15 years old when she made the first of four visits to the surgeon’s table, is no stranger to adversity. Even as her glances towards her coach, Rafael Paciaroni, became more frequent, so her spirit rose. Stepping inside the baseline, she rediscovered her quality and her conviction, claiming 11 of the next 14 games to move within touching distance of victory.

“Tennis is not 100-metre race, it’s a marathon,” said Haddad Maia. “Especially my matches. I worked very hard since [I was] young, and my mentality is to not give up, always to give one more chance to [myself], even if things are not going the way that I want. 

“I think the key today was the discipline, to be calm and to accept that, okay, I was missing. Okay, she was playing better. She changed the game. 

“But we are in Roland Garros playing on Suzanne Lenglen, and I will try until the last point. I think the key was to fight today.”

That was never more the case than when Sorribes Tormo fought off three match points against her serve at 3-5 in the decider, the last with an impudent flicked pass that bamboozled Haddad Maia into stabbing the ball long after the Spaniard had shaped to go the way.

It set the scene for a dramatic finale, Sorribes Tormo summoning a final gesture of defiance to break Haddad Maia as she served for the match, only for the Brazilian to reclaim the break and complete the job at the second time of asking. Having blasted her 65th winner of the afternoon, Haddad Maia’s features crumpled with emotion.

“I think the emotions were there for both of us,” said Haddad Maia. “As I said [after] the last match, when we play big matches against big players in big tournaments – we played almost four hours – it’s not only about tennis, it’s a lot of things that come through our minds.

“I was trying to give one more chance for me, because I knew that I was missing a few shots. But I’m very happy and proud that I did not give up and I was trying to push until my limit. I think I deserve it because of that.”

Few would argue. Haddad Maia will now face Ons Jabeur, the seventh seed, with more history on the line as she attempts to become the first Brazilian woman to make the semi-finals since Bueno in 1966. Jabeur saw off Bernarda Pera of the United States 6-3, 6-1.

The winner of that match will face either Swiatek or Coco Gauff, who defeated Slovenia’s Anna Schmiedlova 7-5, 6-2 to set up a repeat of last year’s final.

“Since last year I have been wanting to play [Swiatek], especially at this tournament,” said Gauff. “I’m the type of mentality, if you want to be the best you have to beat the best. I think also if you want to improve, you have to play the best.”

In the men’s draw, Holger Rune will face Casper Ruud in the last eight after edging past Francisco Cerúndolo of Argentina 7-6 (7-3), 3-6, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (10-7). The match was marred by a moment of controversy when the chair umpire, Kader Nouni, failed to spot a double bounce early in the third set as Rune scrambled to hoist up a defensive lob. To the evident irritation of Cerúndolo, the Danish sixth seed failed to own up to the error and went on to break for 3-1. 

“When I was hitting the ball, I didn’t know, I just ran for it,” said Rune. “I saw it after the next point on the TV, and I saw it was a double bounce. But the point already happened and [Nouni] called the score.  

“So I felt sorry. Sorry for him. Yeah, I mean, then I managed to break him. I held serve. Then after he broke me, it was close again. You know, this is tennis. This is sports. Some umpires, they make mistakes. Some for me; some for him. That’s life.”

Ruud, the fourth seed, defeated Chile’s Nicolás Jarry 7-6 (7-3), 7-5, 7-5 to set up a repeat of last year’s quarter-final against Rune, which ended with a frosty handshake from the Dane. Rune later accused Ruud of screaming in his face in the locker room, a claim the Norwegian denied.

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The start of the Italian Open has been blighted by the fallout from the controversy, which came after Victoria Azarenka and Beatriz Haddad Maia defeated Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff in Sunday’s final. Rather than addressing the crowd after receiving their trophies, as is traditional, the bemused quartet were directed straight to the podium for photographs.  

“We sincerely apologise to all the players and fans who expect more of the Mutua Madrid Open tournament,” Gerard Tsobanian, the tournament’s CEO, said in a statement. 

“Not giving our women’s doubles finalists the chance to address their fans at the end of the match was unacceptable and we have apologised directly to Victoria, Beatriz, Coco and Jessica. 

“We are working internally and with the WTA to review our protocols and are committed to improving our process moving forward. We made a mistake and this will not ever happen again.”

No explanation was offered for the reasoning behind the decision, which has been widely criticised, not least by Pegula and Gauff. 

Australia’s John Millman, a former world No 33, added his voice to the chorus of disapproval following Tsobanian’s statement, responding on Twitter: “‘Working internally to review protocols’ …It’s pretty simple. Show some proper respect. It’s the very least they deserve.”

The furore marked the culmination of a turbulent 10 days at the Caja Mágica, where accusations of sexism came thick and fast. 

The crop tops and pleated skirts worn by the ball girls were branded discriminatory by Soledad Murillo, Spain’s secretary of state for equality, and were replaced by less revealing outfits for the men’s singles final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jan-Lennard Struff. 

A row also erupted over the disparity in size between birthday cakes the tournament presented to Aryna Sabalenka and Alcaraz. Azarenka retweeted a picture highlighting the difference, writing: “Couldn’t be more accurate on the treatment.”

Whether officials had that in mind when they decided not to invite the doubles finalists to speak is impossible to know, but Azarenka was reportedly unimpressed by the late start to her semi-final match. Iga Swiatek, the World No 1, took aim at the tournament’s scheduling after her defeat to Sabalenka in the women’s final, and it may have been fear of similar barbs that prompted the organisers to pull the plug. 

“What happened in terms of doubles was completely unacceptable,” Azarenka, a 6-4, 6-3 winner over Sloane Stephens at the Italian Open, told the Guardian. “There’s a lot of conversations, obviously, internally, of what happened and I want to see how that develops and what are the consequences of those decisions. 

“So that’s why I don’t want to make too many comments. I believe to give people the opportunity to figure out what’s the best course of action. Do I think it’s unacceptable? It’s absolutely unacceptable.”

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Having stormed through the opening set before fatally taking her foot off the gas in the second, Raducanu fought tooth and nail down the stretch, her determination epitomised by an extraordinary rally that, in the face of some brilliant retrieving by Haddad Maia, she finally won with her fifth overhead. 

There are few more ferocious competitors in the women’s game than Haddad Maia and, as an absorbing duel drew to a climax, the bellicose Brazilian world No 13 threw everything at Raducanu, firing down her heavy southpaw serve with renewed venom, crushing forehands, chasing every lost cause. 

But Raducanu stuck doggedly to the task, stepping inside the baseline to pressure her opponent’s serve and reaping the reward for her boldness and sweet ball-striking in the seventh game, where Haddad Maia overcooked a forehand after Raducanu had angled away a backhand volley to set up a break point. That set the scene for further drama as the 26-year-old defiantly staved off three match points, before an emotional Raducanu finally sealed victory.

“It was a battle from both of us,” said Raducanu after notching up a third straight win at the same event for only the second time since her victory at the US Open in 2021. 

“I think I did a really good job mentally of just staying – hitting through the shots and trying to commit to everything, even when it was tight, even when you’re just [hoping] the opponent misses, because at this level, they don’t.

“I think my first match point she hit the back of the line, and I was half praying the ball was going to go out, but it didn’t. Then she put the next ball away.

“I’m really pleased to have come through.”

Haddad Maia, voted the most improved player on the WTA Tour last year, when she claimed grass-court titles in Nottingham and Birmingham and defeated Iga Swiatek in Toronto, is the highest-ranked player Raducanu has beaten since her title run at Flushing Meadows. It is also only the second time the British No 1 has won three matches in a row at the same tournament since then. Having beaten Australian Open semi-finalist Magda Linette in the previous round, Raducanu has put the fitness concerns that plagued her in the build-up to the tournament well and truly behind her. 

“Physically, I actually feel pretty good,” said Raducanu, who arrived in California still recovering from tonsilitis and recently suffered a recurrence of last year’s wrist injury. 

“I have been managing my wrists, obviously. But that’s something that I’m continuing to manage, and I’m doing everything off the court to try and make them in the best possible place to compete. So far we are on top of it.”

She will need to remain so. In her first appearance in the last 16 of WTA 1000 event, Raducanu will face Iga Swiatek, the world No 1, who came through a tough battle agaist former champion Bianca Andreescu 6-3, 7-6 (7-1).

“It was a really tight match, and I’m really happy that I actually played such a tight match, because now I see how I can handle those situations after couple of matches that were kind of one way,” said Swiatek, who has yet to play a three-set match this season. 

“I think we both played well. I’m happy that in those important moments I was the one that was more solid.”

Swiatek was also the more solid player on the one previous occasion she has faced Raducanu. That came on the clay courts of Stuttgart last year, when the Briton gave a decent account of herself in her first meeting with a top-10 player as Swiatek prevailed 6-4, 6-4. The Pole said the differing conditions and the fact that almost a year has elapsed since then meant the match would have little bearing on the outcome this time around.  

“After Stuttgart, I just know how her shots feel on the racquet, because before I hadn’t even practised with her,” said Swiatek. “So it helps that way.

“But on the other hand, we are playing on a hard court, and there was clay – but actually, this surface is slower. So I think I have to really take care of the tactics.”

Ons Jabeur, the fourth seed, suffered her second defeat of the year to Marketa Vondrousova, the 79th-ranked Czech and former French Open finalist. Vondrousova, who defeated Jabeur in the second round of the Australian Open, survived a late rally from the Tunisian to win 7-6 (7-5), 6-4.

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Ashleigh Barty won the Australian Open and looked ready to dominate the women’s game for years to come. Within two months she had retired, giving way to another all-conquering No 1 in Iga Swiatek, who would go on compile a season for the ages. Not at Wimbledon, though, where Elena Rybakina, representing Kazakhstan but born in Moscow, came out of left field to lift the title and confound the All England Club’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players.

The players we expected to shine at the beginning of the year were not the same ones we were talking about by the end of it. Garbiñe Muguruza, unable to sustain the resurgent form that carried her to victory at the 2021 WTA Finals, won just a dozen matches. Anett Kontaveit, the finalist in Guadalajara, rose to second in the world but barely made a ripple at the majors. Injuries were rife among the previous year’s grand slam finalists, with Jennifer Brady, Barbora Krejcikova, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Karolina Pliskova all missing large chunks of the season, while Emma Raducanu, the defending US Open champion, was afflicted by a string of physical problems. 

Others started the year promisingly only to fall away. Danielle Collins made her first major final at the Australian Open but, hampered by a lingering neck injury, was unable to build on her outstanding early form. Paula Badosa, a title winner in Sydney, reached a career-high ranking of second but suffered disappointment at the majors and finished the year at 13th.  

Exciting new players emerged. Czech teenager Linda Fruhvirtova won in Chennai. Diane Parry, a former junior world No 1, dethroned Krejcikova in Paris – where China’s Qinwen Zheng likewise announced herself to the wider world with a brilliant run to the last 16.

Meanwhile, Ons Jabeur and Jessica Pegula were among the more established performers who made major strides – not forgetting Alizé Cornet, whose Indian summer included a first grand slam quarter-final at Melbourne Park, and Wimbledon semi-finalist Tatjana Maria – while Caroline Garcia rediscovered the exhilarating form that once moved Andy Murray to tip her as a future No 1.

With Pegula and Collins leading the way, the US also enjoyed an encouraging year. Madison Keys, a surprise semi-finalist at Melbourne Park, looked more her old self. Amanda Anisimova beat defending champion Naomi Osaka at the Australian Open and went on to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals. And, at the absurdly precocious age of 18, Coco Gauff reached the singles and doubles finals at Roland Garros. But as one American star waxed, another waned, Serena Williams bidding farewell to the game (for now, at least) in unforgettable style at the US Open. 

No consideration of the past year would be complete without special mention of Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska, a finalist in Lyon only a week after fleeing Odessa with her younger sister Ivanna in the face of Russian bombing, and her wonderfully unorthodox compatriot Daria Snigur, whose first-round upset of Simona Halep was among the highlights of the US Open. 

As Yastremska, Snigur and others reminded us, there were more important things than tennis going on in the world in 2022. With that in mind, here are our picks for the year’s best moments.  

Best player: Iga Swiatek

There are many ways to quantify the brilliance of Swiatek in 2022. Most are glaringly obvious. The French and US Open triumphs that made Swiatek the first player to win two majors in a season since Angelique Kerber in 2016. The 37-match winning streak that ran from late February to early July – the longest such run since 1990 – and brought titles in Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart, Rome and Paris. The manner in which, having arrived at No 1 by default following Barty’s retirement, Swiatek cemented the position through sheer dominance, winning all but nine of her 76 matches to finish the season 6,030 points ahead of her nearest rival. 

Yet Swiatek’s emergence as the world’s best player was about more than just numbers. On and off the court, the 21-year-old flourished in every way a player can flourish. After the emotional ups and downs of the previous season, when she suffered tearful defeats at the Tokyo Olympics and the WTA Finals, Swiatek made good on her stated aims of finding greater mental consistency and expanding her tactical repertoire. 

The winds of change were first felt at the Australian Open, where she twice came from a set down to make the semi-finals of a hard-court major for the first time. Asked what she would take from her run, the Pole said she had learned that she didn’t need to perform perfectly to win, even on hard courts, and spoke with enthusiasm of her more aggressive game style and ability to utilise her mental and physical strengths with the same effectiveness as her gyrating topspin forehands. 

The lessons would stick. Under the shrewd stewardship of Tomasz Wiktorowski, the fellow Pole to whom she turned during the off-season after taking the difficult decision to part ways with Piotr Sierzputowski, her coach of the previous six years, the greater mental resilience and adaptability she had craved became ever more apparent. Only at Wimbledon, where she seemed to talk herself out of contention long before falling to a third-round defeat against Cornet, did Swiatek’s self-belief falter. 

If grass remains an unsolved mystery for now, elsewhere the Pole established herself as a supreme problem solver. That point was underlined by her response to that historic Centre Court defeat and the inevitable lull that followed. Little about Swiatek’s post-Wimbledon form suggested she would go on to triumph at Flushing Meadows, yet the way she bounced back from unexpected losses to Garcia in Warsaw, Beatriz Haddad Maia in Toronto and Keys in Cincinnati said everything about her evolution as a competitor, particularly given her discontent over the lighter balls in use over the US Open series. 

Beyond the tactical and technical refinements she brought to her game (a greater willingness to dictate from the baseline and kill off points at the net, a more secure second serve), Swiatek also established herself as the voice and moral conscience of the women’s game. The blue and yellow ribbon she pinned to her cap following the outbreak of the Ukraine war remained in place to the season’s end, a symbol of the solidarity she expressed in both word and deed. The Pole used her French Open winners’ speech to urge Ukraine to “stay strong”, and later staged an exhibition event in Krakow that raised €422,000 for children affected by the war. 

Nor did her commitment to social welfare end there. Not for the first time, Swiatek marked World Mental Heath Day in munificent fashion, donating the prize money from her run to the Ostrava Open final to a Polish charity that helps children with mental issues. And when allegations of sexual and physical abuse were levelled against Miroslaw Skrzypczynski, the president of the Polish tennis federation, she was quick to speak out on social media, calling for a full investigation and declaring herself “against violence in sports, in tennis, in every discipline and in everyday life”. 

It is easy to forget, from a distance of 12 months, that Swiatek began the year ranked ninth. At that point, Barty was the runaway world No 1, Raducanu and Fernandez had recently contested an all-teenage US Open final, and there was a widely held expectation that Muguruza, the newly crowned WTA Finals champion, would feature as prominently in the season ahead as Kontaveit, the woman she beat in the final. No one was really talking about Swiatek. Now, as we ponder who will claim the big titles in 2023, she is the first name on everyone’s lips. 

Most improved player: Ons Jabeur

Like Taylor Fritz on the men’s side, Jabeur might seem a slightly left-field candidate in this category. But consider the evidence. The 28-year-old, who had never previously been beyond the last eight at a major, reached back-to-back grand slam finals at Wimbledon and the US Open. She won the biggest title of her career at the Madrid Open. She qualified for the WTA Finals for the first time. And, like Swiatek, Jabeur climbed the toughest rungs of the professional ladder, rising from 10th in the world to finish the year at a career-high No 2.

As ever, Jabeur did it all while carrying the hopes of a people, a country and a continent. Such has been her trailblazing influence, she could be forgiven for trading in “Ons” for “The First Arab or African Woman to…” – words that almost invariably precede any mention of her name. Speaking of which, did we mention that she became the first African woman to reach a slam final since Sandra Reynolds in 1960?

“I want to go bigger, inspire many more generations,” Jabeur said after losing out to Rybakina in the Wimbledon final.

“Tunisia is connected to the Arab world, is connected to the African continent. That area, we want to see more players, you know, it’s not like Europe. I want to see more players from my country, from the Middle East, from Africa. I think we didn’t believe enough at certain points that we can do it. Now I’m just trying to show that [we can].”

Among several other notable contenders for the title of most improved player, two deserve special mention. 

The first is Jessica Pegula, who won the biggest title of her career in Guadalajara and reached the quarter-finals of every major bar Wimbledon. Ranked just outside the top 20 before the Australian Open, the 28-year-old New Yorker was a byword for consistency in 2022, her equanimity and ability to adapt to circumstance making her a fixture at the sharp end of tournaments as she finished the year in third spot. 

The second is Haddad Maia, who rose 68 places in the rankings to finish the year at a career-high 15th. The powerful Brazilian has not had the smoothest journey in the professional game – at 26, she already has four surgeries behind her – but, over the course of an outstanding summer, she demonstrated what she can do when fit. A dozen straight grass-court wins earned Haddad Maia her first-tour level titles in Nottingham and Birmingham, while her superb run to the Toronto final included a three-set win over Swiatek. 

Respectful nods must also go to a trio of Russians. Veronika Kudermetova made the top 10 for the first time after a season that included final appearances in Melbourne, Dubai and Istanbul and a first grand slam quarter-final at Roland Garros, while Ekaterina Alexandrova and Liudmila Samsonova were both title winners and top-20 debutants. 

But did anyone make greater strides in 2022 than Jabeur? It is only 18 months since her maiden title win in Birmingham made her the first Arab woman to win a WTA Tour event; now, she is consistently challenging for the game’s biggest prizes. Jabeur is improvement personified.

Most heart-warming moment: Tatjana Maria

After beating her compatriot Jule Niemeier at Wimbledon to make her first grand slam semi-final at the age of 34, Tatjana Maria was asked if she ever longed to be recognised not simply as a mother of two, but also as a tennis player and an individual. No, came the German’s refreshingly down-to-earth response – motherhood was the most important thing in her life. 

“I try to keep normal as much as possible, because what makes me proudest is to be a mom,” said Maria after booking a last-four showdown with close friend Jabeur.

There is nothing normal about reaching the last four at Wimbledon, particularly for a player who had only once previously reached the third round of a slam. Yet somehow the unseeded Maria, with all her talk of creches and Pampers and family life, made the extraordinary feel relatable. On the court, she earned universal admiration with emotional victories against a trio of seeded players: Sorana Cirstea, Maria Sakkari and – from match points down, and to the Latvian’s evident displeasure – Jelena Ostapenko. Off the court, she cemented her place in the affections of the English public with her insistence that she was just an ordinary working parent, juggling professional commitments with the more serious business of childcare. 

It was an irresistible combination, and there was barely a dry eye in the house when, after a bewitching contest crammed with all manner of flicks, spins and mind-bending geometry from both women, the victorious Jabeur grabbed Maria by the arm and led her back on court, forgoing any display of triumphalism after reaching the biggest final of her life to orchestrate one final ovation for her “barbecue buddy”. 

After a fortnight overshadowed by talk of player bans and points deductions and legal threats, it was the kind of gracious and joyous moment that a beleaguered tournament needed.

Best newcomer: Qinwen Zheng

In the first three rounds of the French Open, Iga Swiatek lost just a dozen games – the same number she conceded from the quarter-finals onwards. Sandwiched between those all-conquering sequences came an intriguing three-set tussle with China’s Qinwen Zheng, a 19-year-old (now 20) with a future that promises to be as big as her thunderous game. 

As Zheng showed that day, she has the talent and the temperament to live with the very best. It wasn’t just the way she traded blows with Swiatek, or the resilience she demonstrated in saving five set points to overturn a 5-2 first-set deficit. It was also the self-belief she showed against the world’s best player. Her refusal to throw in the towel even after sustaining a debilitating thigh injury. The candour and confidence she showed afterwards, as she calmly explained to the world’s press the role menstrual cramps had played in her loss. They were qualities that marked Zheng out as a player of genuine substance – an impression she confirmed when she again went the distance with Swiatek five months later in San Diego.

But there was more to Zheng’s season than a couple of eye-catching performances against the world No 1. She also racked up a string of impressive, high-profile victories over former grand slam champions. At Roland Garros, in only the second major of her fledgling career, she felled former champion Simona Halep, avenging a semi-final defeat to the Romanian in a 250 event in Melbourne at the start of the year. Zheng dumped out Sloane Stephens en route to round three of Wimbledon, and reached the same stage at the US Open after accounting for Ostapenko. In between came a three-set victory over Bianca Andreescu in Toronto, where Zheng reached her first WTA 1000 quarter-final. 

About the only thing she did not do in 2022 was win a title – unlike the 17-year-old Czech teenager Linda Fruhvirtova, arguably her closest rival for best newcomer, who claimed a maiden tournament victory in Chennai. Zheng did, however, make the final in Tokyo, toppling Badosa and Kudermetova along the way, and her superior record at the slams – and giddying rise from 126 to a career-high 25 in the rankings – make her a worthy winner in this category.

Best match: Caroline Garcia v Iga Swiatek, Poland Open

Swiatek aside, did any woman play better tennis in 2022 than Garcia? The Frenchwoman’s renaissance, after three years pockmarked by injury and dwindling confidence, was among the season’s most uplifting stories. And the catalyst came in Warsaw, where a rampant Garcia rewrote the clay-court playbook with a barnstorming attacking display that at times left Swiatek looking utterly bewildered. 

It was a rare indignity for the Pole and one of the finest performances of the season from Garcia, whose blistering returns and unflinching commitment to attack made for the kind of match from which you simply can’t avert your gaze. A humble 250 event in a country where tennis has yet to form deep roots might seem an unlikely setting for such a contest, yet the context and broader ramifications of the match were fraught with significance. 

All eyes were on Swiatek as she attempted to bounce back from the shock Wimbledon defeat to Cornet that ended her 135-day winning run. Playing in her hometown, and on her beloved red clay – where she had won 18 straight matches – the world No 1 could hardly have wished for more auspicious circumstances. And when she recovered from a ludicrously strong start by Garcia to level the match at a set all, making just one unforced error in the process, it felt almost inevitable she would prevail. Having produced superhuman tennis in the opener, surely Garcia would be hard pushed to reproduce that level down the stretch against the world’s best player, and before a fiercely partisan crowd?

No, as it turned out. A restorative victory on the grass courts of Bad Homburg, her first title in three years, had reignited something in Garcia – reminding her, perhaps, that she was once ranked fourth in the world for a reason. Infused with renewed belief by her compatriot Bertrand Perret, who took up the coaching reins from her father Louis Paul in the off-season, she stuck to her guns, kept attacking and was rewarded with a 6-1, 1-6, 6-4 triumph that set the stage not only for her title win in Poland but for much of what followed. 

And what followed was considerable: victory in Cincinnati, where Garcia completed a perfect set of tournament wins on grass, clay and hard courts and became the first qualifier to win a WTA 1000 event; a first grand slam semi-final at the US Open; the biggest title of her career at the WTA Finals; and a year-end ranking of fourth, only six months after she had fallen to 79th, her lowest position in eight years. Was it all purely down to one result? Of course not. But Garcia went into the second half of the season with the air of a woman who knew that, if she could beat Swiatek, she could beat anyone. 

Biggest shock: Ashleigh Barty’s retirement

In a year full of surprises (Garcia’s renaissance, Swiatek’s dominance, the rise of Pegula, Rybakina’s Wimbledon win, Halep’s suspension, to name but a few), none was greater than Barty’s abrupt retirement from the sport. 

The Australian has always been something of an outlier – it’s not every player that takes a year off to play professional cricket – but no one beyond her immediate circle expected the reigning world No 1 to walk away from the game at the age of 25. 

Every player is wired differently, though, and while it looked from the outside as though the Queenslander was set for a period of era-defining preeminence, especially after ending her country’s 44-year wait for a homegrown Australian Open champion, the reality was very different. As we now know, Barty had already realised her greatest ambition by winning Wimbledon the previous summer. Victory at Melbourne Park was the icing on a cake for which the three-time slam champion no longer had the appetite.  

As the watching world grasped for words, the task of explaining the seemingly inexplicable fell to Barty’s coach, Craig Tyyzer. “It was never about the successes,” said Tyyzer. “It was about fulfilling Ash’s dreams, and she basically did that.”

Best occasion: Serena Williams’s farewell

Every great champion must bow out eventually, and enough legends have exited stage left over the years to prove that no player is bigger than the game. But what if the departee is Serena Williams – global icon, winner of 23 grand slam titles, and quite possibly the greatest female athlete of all time? And what if the scene of her departure is the US Open, the rowdiest, most febrile stop on the grand slam merry-go-round? 

Why then, all bets are off. Then, we reach the juncture where perspective gives way to pandemonium; where a New York crowd not noted for its reticence at the best of times becomes a clamorous wall of deafening, unashamedly partisan noise; where Queen Latifah hails Williams as “the queen of Queens” in a glitzy big-screen video; where the woman of the hour emerges in the kind of outfit more befitting a black-tie gala than a tennis match, all shimmers and sparkles and swirls, and is followed on to court by Billie Jean King, who delivers a typically eloquent panegyric, one legend to another; where Oprah Winfrey narrates video montages, Spike Lee conducts coin tosses, and Bill Clinton and Hugh Jackman look on from the stands. Welcome to prime time, baby. 

And that was just the opening round. A couple of nights later, after Williams had come through her opener against Danka Kovinic to set up a meeting with second seed Kontaveit, we did it all over again. Literally. The video clips, the voiceovers, the dress, the commotion. And you know what? Williams prevailed once more, although only she knew how. “I’m just Serena, you know,” she smiled. 

It all came crashing to a halt against Ajla Tomljanovic in round three – although not before another helping of the now-familiar razzmatazz – but it was the wildest of rides, a farewell like no other. 

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A former Wimbledon and French Open champion who held the No 1 ranking for 64 weeks, Halep had almost forgotten what it was like not to be ranked among the game’s elite. But after losing last summer to injury, the Romanian dropped out of the top 10 for the first time in more than seven years. Fearful she would never regain her former level, she told family and friends she was done with tennis.

After overcoming Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 in Toronto to win her third Canadian Open title, Halep will be glad she stuck around. She has spoken frequently of regaining her old fire in the four months since she hired Patrick Mouratglou and, having claimed her first trophy in tandem with the French coach, she will return to sixth in the rankings on Monday with her sights set firmly on further success.

“I’ve been many years there,” said Halep. “But now I feel like it’s a big deal to be back in the top 10. I’m really happy with this performance.  When I started the year I was not very confident, and I set the goal to be, at the end of the year, top 10. And here I am. So it’s a very special moment. I will enjoy it. I will give myself credit. I’m just dreaming for more.”

A summer that has brought a run to the Wimbledon semi-finals and a first WTA 1000 title in more than two years would suggest that more is eminently possible. Only Iga Swiatek, the world No 1, has bettered Halep’s 38 match wins this season, and the manner of her victory over the tenacious Haddad Maia, who seemed to have acquired an unstoppable momentum over the past week, only underlined the sense that she has become a more complete player than ever. 

On an afternoon when the fortunes of both players waxed and waned, the most notable constant was Halep’s belief that she could turn the tables on a player who had ambushed her in the semi-finals of the Birmingham Classic two months ago. Haddad Maia offered the Romanian every opportunity to doubt herself, racing into an early lead in the first set, raising her level to run away with the second, and doggedly retrieving an early break in the decider. Through it all, and despite rarely touching the heights of which she is capable, Halep remained unflinching.

“It was a hard match, difficult match, because she played really, really well,” said Halep. “She’s a very tough opponent. She fought very hard until the end, so I had to stay there. I had to run, sometimes a lot. But I also believed, until the end, that I have the chance to win the match.”

For three games, it looked as though no amount of belief on Halep’s part could keep Haddad Maia at bay. The Brazilian had bullied Iga Swiatek’s second serve during her victory over the world No 1 earlier in the week, and as her opponent stepped inside the baseline to receive, bristling with aggressive intent, Halep could have been forgiven for having flashbacks to the early stages of her semi-final win over Jessica Pegula, who had treated her second delivery with similar disdain. Perhaps she did, for she hit four double faults to concede her opening service game. 

“Terrible,” said Halep. “I’ve been stressed a little bit. I didn’t expect to do four double faults in one game. I don’t know if it [ever] happened before. But sometimes you have to accept that you are not great in some moments, and still [keep] fighting to calm down and to get the confidence back. In the end, it was much better serving.”

In truth, it was much better everything. Halep has adopted a more aggressive approach under Mouratoglou and, while she was never likely to outhit Haddad Maia, she has rarely been more willing to fight fire with fire. As errors crept into the Brazilian’s game and the weight of the occasion began to tell, Halep stood her ground and went to work, finding her range off the ground to reel off six straight games.

Yet if Haddad Maia has proven anything in a week when she has claimed the scalps of Swiatek and three other top-20 players, it is that she is a ferocious and indomitable competitor. The 26-year-old had come storming back from a set down against Belinda Bencic in the quarter-finals and here she took a leaf out of the same playbook, doubling down on her aggressive intent to produce her best tennis of the contest.

“I try to forgive myself, even if I miss, if I did something wrong,” said Haddad Maia, who will rise to a new career high of 16th. “Even when I lost six games in a row, I think Simona wasn’t playing her best tennis also. So maybe she could be nervous as well at this moment.  

“But I was trying to play more aggressive, to do what my coach told me to do, because we know what the goal was. But I was not doing [it] the right way. 

“I was just believing that I could improve during the match. I think tennis is a long match, it’s not a hundred metres, it’s like a marathon. So I was just trying to fight, and that’s why I could get through the second set.”

Haddad Maia was unable to capitalise on an opportunity to break early in the decider, and although she hit back immediately to reclaim a break in the next game, Halep was not to be denied. The closing stages were all about instinct, the 30-year-old falling back on the counterpunching style that has served her so well down the years as she hustled and retrieved, making shot after shot and refusing to give anything away.

“It’s been a battle today,” said Halep. “I’m really happy that I could be stronger in the important moments.”

In the men’s final in Montreal, Pablo Carreño Busta defeated Hubert Hurkacz, the Polish 10th seed, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.

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This summer, while all eyes were on Iga Swiatek and her 37-match winning streak, Haddad Maia quietly compiled an impressive unbeaten run of her own, reeling off a dozen straight victories to claim the first tour-level titles of her career in Nottingham and Birmingham. 

That sequence, the best on grass courts since Serena Williams notched up 20 consecutive wins at Wimbledon between 2015 and 2018, lifted the 26-year-old into the top 30 for the first time. The best female player to emerge from Brazil since Maria Bueno, she has since risen to a new career high of 24th. Beyond the country of her birth, however, recognition has been slow in coming. 

On Wednesday, when Swiatek was asked in press about the prospect of facing either Leylah Fernandez or Haddad Maia in the next round, the conversation was directed firmly towards the home star. Haddad Maia barely received a mention. Yet she dismissed the 13th-seeded Canadian in straight sets and told the crowd afterwards that she was sorry. She hoped they would cheer for her against Swiatek, she said, but acknowledged she would probably play second fiddle again. No matter; she promised to try her best.

As Swiatek discovered, Haddad Maia’s best is formidable. Quick, powerful and possessed of a deadly southpaw serve and weighty forehand, her game is underpinned by an all-court athleticism and burgeoning self-belief that proved too much for the Polish world No 1.

In bright, blustery conditions, Swiatek found her best form elusive, falling to a second defeat in three matches as Haddad Maia secured the biggest win of her career 6-4, 3-6, 7-5. 

“It’s a special moment,” said the Brazilian, who will face Belinda Bencic, a 6-1, 6-3 winner over eighth seed Garbiñe Muguruza, in the quarter-finals. “It’s not always easy to beat the No 1 in the world on a huge stage and against all the crowd. And I think I passed through very tough moments through my career to live this moment.

“I have already four surgeries, and I’m only 26 years old. So when I have special moments, I try to enjoy. Because sometimes we think, ‘Oh, no, I’m not that happy.’ 

“But the truth is that I worked for like 15 years to live this moment, to live this dream. I worked a lot. So I feel proud of myself.”

Haddad Maia certainly put in the hard miles against Swiatek. At 6ft 1in, the Brazilian cuts an imposing figure. Her physical presence is frequently reinforced by a fierce grunt, and her aggressive intent was evident as she moved inside the baseline to threaten the top seed’s second serve. Caroline Garcia employed a similar tactic to defeat Swiatek at last month’s Poland Open, and here the Pole once again looked rushed and unsettled, struggling to establish a rhythm from the baseline in the face of her opponent’s boldness. Swiatek was not helped by a swirling wind that made it “impossible to play from one side” according to Simona Halep, who earlier defeated Switzerland’s Jil Teichmann in straight sets. 

Haddad Maia missed an early break point by overpressing on a return, but in the fifth game her aggression reaped dividends. She drilled a ferocious winner off a second serve to reach deuce, and Swiatek promptly imploded, sending a forehand wildly long before double faulting. With Haddad Maia intelligently directing the majority of her serves down the centre, limiting the Pole’s ability to generate angles and deploy her destructive forehand return from the deuce court, the breakthrough was sufficient to secure the first set.

“I think at the beginning I struggled to find my rhythm on the court,” said Swiatek. “Probably because, you know, she’s a lefty and I had a hard time adjusting to her serve. Plus, the wind. I think without the wind I would manage. But it was pretty crazy out there.”

It got crazier still at the start of the second set, where Swiatek was forced to battle long and hard before surviving an epic service game that featured nine deuces and five break points. Survive she did, though, and when she finally made a breakthrough against Haddad Maia’s serve in the sixth game, and went on to level at a set all, she looked poised to navigate a path to the quarter-finals. 

An early break in the decider reinforced that impression, but Haddad Maia showed steely resolve. Swiatek was visibly irritated when she immediately relinquished the initiative, and soon found herself in an even deeper hole at 4-2 down. She fought tigerishly to level again, saving a match point with an ace at 4-5, and chants of “Iga! Iga! Iga!” were soon rolling down from the stands. 

So much for the underdog. Yet Haddad Maia has long since become accustomed to dealing with adversity. At the age of 14, she left her home in São Paulo to live alone in Santa Catarina, where she trained at the academy of Larri Passos, the former coach of Gustavo Kuerten. At 15, she had the first of two bouts of surgery on her back. At 19, Haddad Maia went under the knife again after injuring her shoulder in an on-court fall, while in 2020 she underwent an operation on her hand after she was diagnosed with a benign tumour. By then, she had also received a 10-month suspension from tennis after failing a doping test caused by the consumption of contaminated supplements. In short, she was not about to be undone by a partisan crowd.

As Swiatek served to stay in the match for a second time, Haddad Maia fired a blazing forehand winner before stabbing away a short ball in the forecourt. Two more match points followed, both of which Swiatek staved off, but when a fourth came along she drilled one last forehand wide to suffer only her third defeat since February.

“Thanks everybody for coming and cheering today,” said Haddad Maia. “I had two days the crowd against me, so I hope the next round you guys cheer for me please.”

If she continues in this vein, they will have no choice. No longer flying under the radar, Haddad Maia is becoming impossible to ignore.

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