Wimbledon 2022: No1 Swiatek takes centre stage for 36th straight win, as Halep begins 2019 ‘defence’

There had been some debate about who should open play for the women’s draw on first Tuesday. Tradition has it that the defending champion always steps out for the first match of the day, but since winning here last year, Ash Barty had retired.

Perhaps Simona Halep, who won back in 2019, but was unable to defend last year due to injury should do the honours. The two-time Major champion and three times more a runner-up was as popular as they come, too: A good choice.

However, Halep was forced to withdraw from her semi-final in Bad Homburg with a neck problem—a blow, considering the form she was running into with the semis in Birmingham too.

But then the seven-time champion Serena Williams, who had not played for a whole year after an ankle injury in her first match here in 2021, threw her hat back into the ring, trying once more to equal that elusive Margaret Court Major record of 24 titles.

She first appeared here in 1998, had played 20 times, and had won 98 matches on the Wimbledon turf.

But then there was the woman of the moment, the woman who had taken over from Barty as world No1 back in March, and had not lost a match since February: Iga Swiatek.

She was up to 35 straight match-wins, 44-3 this year, and had won six titles in a row, and not just any titles. Four were 1000 events, and the most recent was a second French Open title.

Few women who have been junior Wimbledon titles have gone on to win the senior title, but if she could adapt to the grass with as much skill, variety and confidence as she had to hard and clay courts, she was certainly among the favourites—and still only 21 years old.

So in the end, rightly, the world No1 did open play on Tuesday, but she may not have expected the conditions to be quite so difficult.

The sun was out, white clouds raced across the open roof, but the wind was fierce—and cold. However, the draw had been kind for the woman who had taken a break after Paris: This was her first grass match since reaching the fourth round here last year.

She played qualifier Jana Fett, a former top-100 player who was now down at 250, a woman who had never won a match at Wimbledon, and had not managed a main-tour win this season.

But with the conditions so unpredictable, it was still brave of Swiatek to open serving: she did so smoothly. It was less easy for her lowly-ranked opponent, who double faulted to concede an immediate break. Fett did the same in the fourth game, with the match still not finding any rhythm or consistency, but the Pole led 4-0.

And so it went on, with Fett at least getting to game points, and plenty of encouragement from the crowd, but Swiatek swiped them away with her big forehand for another break and the set, 6-0.

Certainly Fett was not short of grass play. Of her three qualifying matches, she had twice come back from a set down. And the second set could not have been a greater contrast with the first. An exchange of quick breaks was followed by another break from Fett. Then she got a game on her own serve for the first time, 3-1: She had clear water.

Swiatek was in trouble again, now making more errors, and Fett took full advantage to return the wavering serve with power and pace. But the Pole resisted two more break points to hold for 2-3. The Croat would surely regret not taking advantage for a 4-1 lead, for in the next game, Swiatek did break, 3-3, and held for the lead.

And soon, it was all over. A double fault from Fett handed over the break, and the world No1 would serve for the match. After an hour and a quarter, Swiatek had her 36th straight match-win and could anticipate her next against lucky loser Lesley Pattinama Kerkhove, who put out British wild card, Sonay Kartal, though only after a three-set battle.

So what did Swiatek make of now having a longer winning streak that either Serena or Venus Williams?

“Not really [feeling I belong], because still when I see Serena or see Venus, they seem like, I don’t know, the legends. I don’t consider myself a legend. They seem
like the ones, they’re the greatest of all time in tennis.

“But it’s amazing for me to have that kind of streak. It just shows how much work we’ve been putting in for every match. I’m pretty happy that I could show consistency because it was always my goal. I didn’t know it’s going to be possible for me to show that much consistency, and actually to win tournaments. But I’m just really happy, and I’m trying to use it the best way possible.”

She then spoke of the honour of opening play on Tuesday:

“I felt like there were many players in the draw that had great results here, kind of deserve it a little bit more because my best result on Wimbledon is fourth round. Considering that we have Serena in the draw, Simona, or [Petra] Kvitova, I mean, they’ve won this tournament. So I felt like they would be the right person.”

Maybe after this year, if she wins, she will think different. Meanwhile, her eighth has already seen the loss of two other seeds, No27 Yulia Putintseva and No18 Jil Teichmann. However, that leaves another French Open champion, Barbora Krejcikova, as a possible opponent in the fourth round.

Halep, in the event, featured on Court 1 against a tricky opponent in Karolina Muchova. After a string of injury problems last year, especially a calf pull in Rome, it had taken time and dedication for Halep to work back to her previous form.

As part of that work, she started training at the Mouratoglou Academy in February, and then took on Serena Williams’ long-term coach Patrick Mouratoglou full-time. There followed a semi run at Indian Wells, plus those two grass semis early this month.

In Muchova, she faced a former top-20 player who had won 14 times against top-20 players, with nine of them taking place at the Majors. She may have been playing just her sixth tournament of 2022, after suffering an abdominal injury, but she had reached the quarters in her last two Wimbledon visits.

Yet it took Halep just three games to bring the first break, moving well, striking her serve and forehand well, and she broke again to take the first set, 6-3. She opened with a love hold in the second, and broke for 3-1. She finished with a flourish, too, breaking to love for the match, 6-2, after just 64 minutes.

Halep is in perhaps the most challenging quarter of the draw, one in which the No4 seed Paula Badosa cruised through for the loss of just three games, and two-time former champion Kvitova also moved on after losing the first set. And Williams is also in this quarter, dangerous and unseeded.

Williams may not have opened play on Centre Court but she would close it, the end of a stunning schedule that had begun with the women’s No1, then saw Rafael Nadal, fresh from his 22nd Major title at Roland Garros, take on Francisco Cerundolo. It was the former champion’s first match here since 2019, and the Argentine, who was ranked just outside the seedings, would prove a challenge.

Nadal cruised on to a 6-4, 6-3 lead, but was pegged back in a 6-3 third set, and then went a break down in fourth set. He had to dig in to fend off another break in the fifth game too, and come the eighth, he unleashed his best to break to love, hold to love, and break again for set and match, 6-4, after three and a half hours.

Nadal will next face Ricardas Berankis, and the second seed is now in a half where a potential fourth-round opponent Marin Cilic, and potential semi-final opponent, Matteo Berrettini, were forced to withdraw after testing positive for Covid.

Berrettini in particular was tipped as a possible champion this year after finishing runner-up here last year, and winning his second Stuttgart and Queen’s titles ahead of Wimbledon.

Finally, then, to Williams, who would face one of the debutantes in the draw. Harmony Tan, ranked 115, was playing only the fourth grass-court tournament of her career, and she had yet to win a grass match.

For her, then, it was a mountain to climb, but of course Williams’ form and fitness were untested, unknown. It would be a late start, too, with temperature and light dropping. But Centre Court stayed packed to see what the formidable, brilliant Williams could do.