Iga Swiatek

The top-ranked Swiatek has won seven titles in 2022, the most by a woman since Serena Williams in 2014.

But Swiatek took the last three points and soon was down on her back, a major champ again. Then, at 6-5 in the set, Swiatek held her first championship point as Jabeur served. When Jabeur missed a slice forehand early in the second set, she dropped her racket to reflect her despair. She ran her opponent this way and that, never letting Jabeur use the sorts of spins and variety that she's accustomed to. But she is 0-2 at that stage, being the runner-up at Wimbledon in July. And she arrived with a record of just 4-4 since her 37-match winning streak ended in July.

Swiatek, the world No. 1, beat Jabeur in straight sets to capture her first U.S. Open singles title. It is her third Grand Slam title and first on a surface ...

Jabeur was sending her back and forth across the baseline and held chances to break Swiatek’s serve in the next game and serve for the second set. Ahead of Saturday, she spoke of the lessons she had learned from that match and how she now knew ways to keep her emotions in check. Swiatek is so different, though, from the fragile player who won her first Grand Slam title as a teenager. She tried to match Swiatek’s power from the baseline. When she is on, she can mix jumping backhand drop shots with a dangerous forehand and a deceptively hard serve that she can land in the corners with nasty movement. She has spoken out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine more than any player who is not from Ukraine and has helped raise more than $2 million for relief efforts through her participation in tennis exhibitions, one of which she organized herself. In March, Ashleigh Barty of Australia, a three-time Grand Slam singles champion and the world No. She has won so many 6-0 sets this year — a “bagel” in tennis parlance — that the saying “Iga’s bakery” was coined. For Swiatek, the victory was the latest success in a season full of them. Open, where she was the first Polish woman to make the singles final. It was the third Grand Slam title of Swiatek’s brief career and her first on a surface other than clay. And now she is the first Polish woman to win three and the U.S.