Iga Swiatek celebrated her 20th birthday with a 6-0 7-5 victory over good friend Kaja Juvan.
The Pole celebrated her 20th birthday with a straight sets win over her good friend from Slovenia.
Next for Swiatek is Shelby Rogers or Rebecca Peterson as she looks to become the first player for 14 years to defend her title.
The Pole started the match as she finished Rome, taking her confident ball-striking and decision making to the court.
As for Juvan there was clearly nerves as this was her first experience of playing on Philippe Chatrier.
Mixing up her shots with depth, power, pace and variety Swiatek was able to dictate points easily and force unforced errors from the racket of Juvan.
It was now 19 games in a row since the Rome semi-finals as the Pole sealed a birthday bagel in 24 minutes.
After winning her 20th game in a row, Swiatek’s streak was stopped as Juavn finally settled into the match.
Eventually finding her range, the Slovenian managed to get some first serves and produce power shots that had the Pole on the back foot.
However more deep returns and better angles within rallies saw Swiatek apply the pressure, with that Juvan faltered hitting another double fault to hand a 3-1 lead to her good friend.
Despite the latest setback, Juvan continued to find new solutions with a mix of drop shots and controlled aggression with the hard work eventually paying off by grinding the break back.
As the set grew on, the match got more interesting with Juvan creating more opportunities as she mixed her controlled power and occasional variety to cause the defending champion problems.
Swiatek responded by moving the Slovenian around the court, dictating the pace of the rallies and using her attacking weapons to push Juvan back into defensive areas of the court.
Juvan’s aggressive style of play saw her create some break points at a crucial moment towards the end of the set.
However some clutch play from Swiatek and poor decision-making from Juvan saw the Slovenian rue those missed opportunities as the Pole held and broke from 40-0 down to prevent a tiebreak and claim victory.
The pole’s title defence is off to a blistering start and on the next stop towards history is either Shelby Rogers or Rebecca Peterson.
