PARIS (Reuters) – Iga Swiatek underlined her credentials as a firm favourite for the French Open title on Saturday after serving up double bagels yet again with a 6-0 6-0 win, but the world number one refused to be swept up in the “Iga’s Bakery” social media craze.
A ruthless Swiatek thrashed Wang Xinyu without dropping a game to cruise into the fourth round, the second time in a month she had won by the same scoreline after beating Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in Rome.
The 22-year-old Pole has dropped only eight games in three matches in Paris this year, while nine opponents have lost at least one set 6-0 to her this year.
Saturday’s result was no different as she beat Wang in 51 minutes. But when a question about “Iga’s Bakery” was put to Swiatek after her victory, her smile vanished before the top seed said she wanted to remain respectful to her opponents.
“Look, I don’t want to really talk about that. I really get why people do that because it’s fun and tennis is entertainment and everything,” Swiatek told reporters.
“But from the players’ point of view, I want to be respectful to my opponents. You don’t see the stuff that is behind the scenes – sometimes it’s not easy to play such matches and sometimes it’s not easy also for the opponents.
“I don’t want to talk about the bakery. Twitter can talk about it, but I’m just going to be focussed on tennis.”
Swiatek will next face Lesia Tsurenko, who lost 6-2 6-0 to her in Rome last month. The Ukrainian described playing the number one as “one of the biggest challenges on tour”.
“I just had a match against her in Rome, which was good just to feel how she’s playing and to feel the speed of her shots,” Tsurenko said.
“It was a good lesson for me, so I will try to play better this time.”
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru)
