Iga Swiatek will keep the No. 1 ranking after reaching third Roland Garros final, fourth Grand Slam final

For the first time since she first got to No. 1 last April, Iga Swiatek’s top ranking was in jeopardy at Roland Garros this year, as Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka had a shot at passing her.

But with Sabalenka falling to Karolina Muchova in the semifinals on Thursday—and Swiatek defeating Beatriz Haddad Maia in her semifinal—there will be no change at the top after all.

Swiatek will kick off her 63rd consecutive week at No. 1 on the WTA rankings next Monday.

More immediately, the 22-year-old is now through to the third Roland Garros final of her career—and her fourth Grand Slam final—after a 6-2, 7-6 (7) victory over Haddad Maia on Thursday, avenging a loss in their only previous meeting, which the Brazilian won on hardcourts in Toronto last summer, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5.

Swiatek has never lost a major final, winning her first two Roland Garros finals in 2020 (beating Sofia Kenin) and 2022 (beating Coco Gauff), as well as the US Open final in 2022 (beating Ons Jabeur).

Despite getting broken at love in the first game of the match, Swiatek never really looked in trouble in the first set, breaking right back at 15 in the next game and eventually winning four games in a row from 2-all to pocket the opening frame in 44 minutes.

The 85-minute second set was a much different story. Haddad Maia again grabbed an early break for 2-1 and held for a 3-1 lead—Swiatek got the break back again, but this time the two stayed on serve all the way until the tie-break, where Haddad Maia built a 5-3 lead and even had a set point up 6-5.

But Swiatek just wouldn’t let the set go, fighting off that set point and finishing the match off a few points later after a total of two hours and nine minutes on court.

When the two played in Canada last year, Swiatek converted three of nine break points—today, she was a perfect four-for-four.

Awaiting Swiatek in the final will be the No. 43-ranked Muchova after her grueling 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 7-5 victory over No. 2-ranked Sabalenka, in which she actually faced a match point serving at 2-5, 30-40 in the third set before winning the last five games of the match.

Anyone tracking Muchova’s record against top players might not be too surprised with that result, though—she’s now 5-0 in her career against Top 3 players, having won all four of her previous matches against that ranking class, too, beating No. 3 Karolina Pliskova (2019 Wimbledon), No. 1 Ashleigh Barty (2021 Australian Open), No. 2 Naomi Osaka (2021 Madrid) and No. 3 Maria Sakkari (2022 Roland Garros).

There’s more: Muchova won her only career meeting with Swiatek, too.

It was well before either Swiatek or Muchova made their big breakthroughs, though. They played each other in the first round of a WTA 250 clay-court event in Prague in 2019, when Swiatek was ranked No. 95 and Muchova No. 106, with the Czech prevailing, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4.

They’ll meet again for the Roland Garros women’s title on Saturday.