Aryna Sabalenka ends Iga Swiatek's Roland Garros reign and reaches her first French Open final

Aryna Sabalenka delivered a true statement, defeating three-time defending champion Iga Swiatek at Roland Garros. The Belarusian snapped her opponent's incredible 26-match winning streak and earned a place in the French Open final.

After a couple of tight sets, everything was decided in the third, where Sabalenka took absolute control of the match to close out a decisive 7-6(1), 4-6, 6-0 victory. Sabalenka will now seek the title this Saturday against the winner of the match between Coco Gauff and Lois Boisson.

Everything started perfectly for Sabalenka, who secured two consecutive breaks from the outset against a distracted opponent, taking absolute control of the match. The Belarusian went up 3-0, 30-0, when Swiatek finally showed her first reaction, fighting back on return to recover one of the breaks. However, Sabalenka quickly responded with her third consecutive break, putting her up 4-1 with her serve to follow.

Neither player had found much consistency on their serve; Sabalenka had a 55% first serve percentage against Swiatek's 54%. The four-time French Open champion began to recover in the match, this time getting two consecutive breaks herself and going up 5-4. Nevertheless, things ultimately came down to a tie-break after successive breaks between both players until 6-6. The tie-break was comfortably decided in the Belarusian's favor, 7-1.

The second set once again began with exchanged breaks from both players, but Swiatek was the first to take the lead, securing a second consecutive break to go up 2-1 before finally holding her service game for the first time. The match then entered a phase where both easily won their service games, and no new break points were played for the remainder of the set.

The one-break advantage was enough for Swiatek to level things with a 6-4, being more aggressive than her opponent with 12 winners against Sabalenka's 8, while in unforced errors, Swiatek totaled 8 against her opponent's 10.

The moments of highest tension were expected for the end, but the dominance was one-sided. Sabalenka started with a quick service game and then secured an early break that put her ahead and demoralized Swiatek. The Pole couldn't handle the pressure in the final part of the match and won just a handful of points from then until the end of the match. Sabalenka secured three consecutive breaks on three opportunities and closed out the final set with a comfortable 6-0.

This time, Sabalenka won 80% of the points played, with 5 winners and 0 unforced errors against Swiatek's mere 2 winners and 5 unforced errors. It was a crushing final set from the Belarusian, who advanced to her first Roland Garros final – where she will seek her 4th Grand Slam title this Saturday against Coco Gauff or Lois Boisson.