‘All the pressure is on her’- Relaxed Coco Gauff Daringly Attempts to Play With Rival Iga Swiatek’s Mind Ahead of French Open SF Clash

After outshining some of the biggest names, Coco Gauff is now two wins away from glory at the ongoing Roland Garros. However, it won’t be an easy task for the American tennis prodigy as she will be up against the 3x French Open champion Iga Świątek, who also has a dominating 10-1 lead in their head-to-head record. Despite massively trailing behind in their H2H record, Gauff recently issued a confident statement ahead of her semifinal encounter with the Pole.

In a press conference at the Roland Garros, the 20-year-old player was reminded about her past ten defeats that came against her upcoming opponent, Świątek. One of the journalists’ asked: “What do think about her(Swiatek) playing?…Does it impress you or does it make you a little bit more stressful and how do you deal with that that you know you are gonna play the player that you lost 10 times” First the World No. 3 laughed and said, “Nice way to word it…”.

Further she answered by saying, “Look she’s obviously the number one in the world and she won this tournament like three times already and I think for me I’m just going in with it confidence and I mean when I played her in Cincinnati, I didn’t go into the match thinking oh I have never beaten her before never taking a set off of her.” The reigning US Open champion went on to open up about how she is not thinking about her Polish opponent’s thumping victories against the likes of Markéta Vondroušová and Anastasia Potapova in the previous rounds.

She said, “So I can’t think about you know past players, you know, Potapova isn’t me, I’m not Vondroušová. Doesn’t mean anything that I’m going to maybe I could lose with the same score maybe not. But I’m just going to go in and just try to win and I have nothing to lose and all the pressure is on her, so yeah.”

Back in 2023, in a major upset, Coco Gauff finally broke through against world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, claiming her first victory in then-eight meetings to advance to the Cincinnati Open. “It feels really good,” Gauff said. “It shows that I can be at that level, or compete at that level at least. I’m sure I’m going to face her many more times. I still think that I’m not even to the peak of my game.”

Coco Gauff, brimming with confidence after recent wins, aims to upset world No. 1 Iga Swiatek at the French Open tomorrow. This will be their 12th encounter on Parisian clay, with Swiatek dominating their past meetings. Can Gauff turn the tide and make it a 10-2 series?

Coco Gauff’s previous French Open encounters against Iga Świątek

Back in 2022, the American player entered the Roland Garros as the 18th-seeded participant, and she defeated the likes of Sloane Stephens and Elise Mertens to reach the championship match. However, Gauff failed to overcome the number 1 seed, Iga Świątek who won with a score of 6-1, 6-3, and clinched her second clay major title in Paris.

Aside from their title match encounter, Gauff and Świątek have also squared off against each other in the quarterfinal round of the previous season’s Grand Slam event. In 2023, Gauff was the sixth seed when she reached the quarterfinals after defeating Anna Karolína Schmiedlová in the fourth round of the French Open. But it was once again the Pole who managed to come out on top in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2, against her American opponent.

Who do you think will prevail in this season’s French Open encounter between Gauff and Świątek? Let us know in the comments section.