To take a famous example, imagine if Roger Federer had missed the inside-out forehand that denied Tommy Haas the opportunity to serve for a straight-sets win at Roland Garros in 2009. That was the year Rafael Nadal suffered a shock fourth-round defeat to Robin Soderling, gifting Federer, who had lost the previous three finals to the great Spaniard, with a priceless opportunity. Had the Swiss not capitalised, there would have been no career grand slam, and posterity would have remembered him as the finest clay-court player never to have won the French Open. Instead, serving at two sets to love down and 3-4, 30-40, Federer kissed the sideline with the most audacious of winners, and the rest is history. He would later call it the most important shot of his career.    

The stakes weren’t quite of that magnitude for Giorgi as she belatedly began to find her range against Swiatek. But six double faults had left the Italian trailing by a double break with only 21 minutes gone and, given that the Polish world No 1 came into the match unbeaten in her previous 70 outings at WTA 1000 level after winning the first set, the need for action was clear. Currently ranked 108 but once a top-30 player, Giorgi has the game to trouble anyone when the mood takes her – and for the next 10 minutes, that is precisely what happened. 

For that, Swiatek herself was partly to blame. Three consecutive missed forehands from the four-time grand slam champion handed Giorgi some much needed breathing space, and the 32-year-old got her side of the scoreboard moving with an ace. Suddenly, Giorgi had the bit between her teeth. With her groundstrokes acquiring fresh length and penetration, Italian slammed winners off either wing. In a trice, Giorgi had pocketed seven out of eight points and Swiatek was 0-40 down; the Pole had the lead, but Giorgi had the momentum. 

At this point, a familiar narrative heaved into view: the one where Swiatek is rushed into error by a powerful opponent playing the kind of first-strike, hell-for-leather tennis that can push her off the baseline and sow doubts in her mind. Giorgi is a streaky player but, as her Canadian Open victory of 2021 demonstrated, she is quite capable of holding her own at this level when courage meets consistency. This was Giorgi’s chance, her window of opportunity – and the manner in which Swiatek slammed it shut, arresting the Italian’s impetus and re-establishing her own, highlighted many of the qualities that underpin her pre-eminence.

There was the tactical wit that saw Swiatek take the pace off a first serve, eliciting a short return from which she was able to rifle a winner. There was the athletic defending that kept the Pole alive long enough, in a rally where she was second best from start to finish, for Giorgi to go long. There was the smart body serve that carried her to deuce, and another bold flourish when she faced a fourth break point, a heavy crosscourt forehand that Giorgi barely reached. 

Above all, though, it was Swiatek’s focus and composure that shone through. It is easy to underestimate those virtues, yet they are the foundation of her success. All the shots and all the tactical smarts in the world are as nothing without the concentration and presence of mind to apply them. As is so often the case with Swiatek, a casual glance at the scoreline might suggest a straightforward victory, but it is her mental steel, so painstakingly nurtured in tandem with sports psychologist Daria Abramowicz, that makes such emphatic results possible. 

And yes, of course it is easier to think clearly and execute your shots when you already have a healthy lead. But the Pole will have been aware of the importance of that game, just as she will have known how dangerous Giorgi can be when she gets on a roll. Who knows what might have happened had the Italian broken at that point? Swiatek’s industry and application rendered the question moot. 

“I was kind of in a positive attitude,” said the 22-year-old, who is bidding to win the “sunshine double” of Indian Wells and Miami for the second time in three years. 

“I already know that I could do it two years ago, so this experience has taught me that there’s no need to worry or panic, you just have to really use every minute on court to be focused and get the right feeling. 

“That’s all you can do. You don’t know if it’s going to come or not.”

Of late, it has come more often than not. A third-round loss to Linda Noskova at the Australian Open is the only significant blot on a season that has included WTA 1000 titles in Qatar and Indian Wells. Swiatek avenged that defeat when she met Noskova in the California desert earlier this month, and she will have the opportunity to make it a double dose of playback when she faces the Czech teenager again in the next round here. 

“Pretty interesting,” said Swiatek of a third meeting in three months with the 31st-ranked Noskova. “It would be nice if the WTA could draw [differently] so we don’t get bored. I’m kidding. 

“Playing against her is tough, as you could see in Australia. I’m going to focus on myself and learn what I did wrong, what I did good in our last matches, and just use that knowledge so I can play in a solid way, really efficiently.”

It is an art she is rapidly perfecting.

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It was not a match-up either player wanted. As Stephens put it, “to play each other, again, someone has to win it, someone has to lose, it’s just sucky.” Much has changed for the two women since the 2017 final, not least their respective rankings. Once staples of the top 10, both now find themselves outside the world’s top 40 and battling to rekindle past glories.

When Stephens took the opening set by the same 6-3 scoreline as their final-day showdown four summers ago, history did indeed look set to repeat itself. Keys, though, had other ideas. Dominating on her first serve, behind which she won 100% of the points, the 26-year-old swept through the second set, commanding the baseline exchanges with her booming forehand as she smoked 11 winners.

Such boldness served Keys well in the decider, where she pulled off a stunning angled volley at 15-40 in the ninth game en route to a courageous hold. A late exchange of breaks set the scene for a tense finale, and when Stephens dropped three consecutive points to trail 5-3 in the tiebreak, the match looked to be on Keys’ racket. But Stephens held her nerve brilliantly, refusing to waver when Keys denied her a match point with another colossal forehand winner. She sealed the match at the third time of asking, greeting victory in muted fashion as a Keys backhand flew narrowly wide.

“I thought the level was really good,” said Stephens, the world No 66, who will play Coco Gauff next after the American teenager defeated Poland’s Magda Linette 5-7, 6-3, 6-4. “We are both looking to start winning some matches and get back to where we were. It’s just unfortunate we had to play each other here, because I felt like we were both on the upswing a little bit.

“I feel like once we kind of connect our games and like things kind of fall back into place we’ll be where we want to be. But obviously that gets halted when you play each other in the first round of the tournament, so that kind of sucks. I still think both of us are headed in the right direction, which is good.”

On an opening day that offered an abundance of potential upsets in the women’s draw, Garbiñe Muguruza came through a searching examination against Donna Vekic, edging home 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-5). Muguruza, the ninth seed, recovered from 4-2 down in the first set and survived a determined fightback from the 57th-ranked Croatian in the second after leading 5-3.

“A very good win,” reflected the former French Open and Wimbledon champion, who has yet to progress beyond the last 16 in New York. “It’s a slam that, historically, it’s not my strongest … I feel like I have always came super prepared and, for whatever reason, my game didn’t click. But I don’t think about that now. Every year I come, I’m like, ‘You know what? That doesn’t matter. It’s a new year. Nobody remembers, nobody cares what happened in the past.’ I just have to go through the first rounds, which I didn’t manage to do before, and then get the confidence in playing on these courts.”

Similarly relieved to make it through was Simona Halep. Handed a brutal opener against Camila Giorgi, who recently claimed the biggest title of her career at the Canadian Open, Halep showcased a much-improved serve as she shrugged off a late fightback by the Italian. Halep, who fired down six aces and won 83% of points behind her first serve, missed two match points at 6-5 but held out to win 6-4, 7-6 (7-3).

“I struggled a little bit in the end to finish the match, but I’m happy that actually I have been strong enough in the end, in the second set, to finish the match,” said Halep, the 12th seed, who missed Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the Olympics with a calf injury. “I served well also the previous tournaments, so I feel a little bit stronger there. I worked a lot in the break, when I couldn’t actually move that much because of the leg. So I did practise a lot of serves.”

Naomi Osaka, the third seed and defending champion, safely negotiated her opener against Marie Bouzkova, the 87th-ranked Czech, winning 6-4, 6-1. It was a tougher start for second seed Aryna Sabalenka, however, the Belarusian coming through in three sets against Serbia’s Nina Stojanovic, 6-4, 6-7 (4-7), 6-0.

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Giorgi’s singular approach hasn’t always reaped rewards commensurate with her talent, but things have changed for her this week at the WTA 1000 event in Montreal. Unseeded, ranked 71st in the world, and playing a more controlled brand of the high-risk, high-reward tennis that has been her calling card throughout her career, Giorgi claimed a trio of seeded scalps in the shape of Elise Mertens, Petra Kvitova and Coco Gauff to make the final. There, in the biggest match of her life, she defeated fourth seed Karolina Pliskova for the third time this summer, claiming the third and most significant title of her career with a 6-3, 7-5 victory.

It was a performance of courage, aggression and composure from Giorgi, who will now move into the top 35 for the first time in over two years. Her only lapse of focus came when she uncharacteristically hurled her racket across the court in anger after a miss early in the second set. Even in victory she wavered only momentarily, quickly recovering her equanimity after the briefest suggestion of a tear. 

“I was very emotional inside,” insisted Giorgi, who becomes only the second woman to win a WTA 1000 title, after Flavia Pennetta’s victory at Indian Wells in 2014.

“I’m not the one that shows a lot. [But] it’s just amazing. I’m very happy for what I did this week. This comes with all the work I have been doing with my father. Of course, he’s my coach. So I think [it’s down to] all the work we’ve been putting together through all these years. One day, I was sure and he was sure that [results like this] can come in many periods, because I was playing very good actually. I was playing a very high level already, a few months ago. I think I was just believing in myself.”

Belief has been an equally central theme in Pliskova’s summer. No sooner had she lost the Wimbledon final to Ashleigh Barty last month than she was looking ahead to the US hard court swing, and the possibility of another successful run at the US Open, where she was a finalist in 2016. That could still happen for the Czech, who offered another reminder of her enduring quality with her semi-final victory over top seed Aryna Sabalenka in Montreal. Yet Pliskova, who will rise to world No 4 despite this defeat, will need to find her best when it really matters if she is to build on her renaissance as a grand slam contender.

This was her third successive defeat in a final this season. With the Czech lacking the commanding aura she had shown against Sabalenka, it was the relatively inexperienced Giorgi who handled the occasion the better of the two, returning with greater aggression and consistency and dominating the longer baseline exchanges. All the same, Pliskova, who made 34 unforced errors and was broken four times, can reflect with satisfaction on her rise in the rankings, having fallen out of the top 10 for the first time in five years just before Wimbledon.

“I think I’m doing quite well now,” said Pliskova, who has won 12 of her past 15 matches. “Since the first final in Rome [where she lost 6-0, 6-0 to Iga Swiatek], I think my game really improved and I’m playing some good matches. Of course, it’s normal to lose sometimes. I would love to win all of my finals. [But] it’s not like it’s only in my hands; there is also somebody else [involved]. I’m playing really good players in the final.

“But I believe it’s not going to be that I will lose all of the finals. If I can make it every week to the finals, still I think it’s amazing. I think maybe it can be better sometimes that you are not, like, too flying after the finals. Now I can be more ready; [it] actually gives me more motivation to play in the next tournament.

“But anyway, there is Cincinnati, there is New York. I have plenty of tournaments to go this year. I’m just happy that my level kind of went back to where it was before the Covid break. I feel like I’m playing well now.”

Having been slow out of the blocks in the Rome and Wimbedon finals, Pliskova got off to the solid start she needed, serving well to save two break points in the third game before earning an opportunity of her own in the sixth. Giorgi’s response offered a hint of what was to come, however, the Italian moving brilliantly to reach three successive backhands that would have earned Pliskova the point against many players. The Czech seemed surprised by her opponent’s powers of retrieval, backpedalling fruitlessly as Giorgi got to an acutely angled ball that carried her wide of the net post. 

With the danger averted, Giorgi showed steel to break in the next game, a nine-minute battle of wills in which she treated her opponent’s second serve with disdain. When Pliskova finally netted a backhand to fall behind, she furiously slammed her racket into the ground, earning a code violation. A second break followed at 3-5, a double fault at 15-30 proving costly for Pliskova, and by the time Giorgi held at the start of the second set, she had won five games in a row.

Another ill-timed double fault saw Pliskova broken again to fall 3-1 behind, but Giorgi immediately repaid the favour, throwing in two double faults from 15-30 to leave the players level on serve again. It looked like the cue for a Pliskova comeback, but it was not to be, the Czech sealing her own fate with another error-strewn game as she served to stay in the match at 5-6. 

“I am very happy to have this gift,” said Giorgi. “I dedicate [the victory] to [my father], because I have this because he dedicated many hours with me. When you dedicate all your work, I think one day comes beautiful things, you know?”

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