Kostyuk stuns Swiatek as Paris shocks continue
Iga Swiatek was dumped out of Roland-Garros by Marta聽Kostyuk as the shock results continued to pile up at the French Open.
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Reigning women's singles champion Coco Gauff was knocked out on Sunday (AEST), in the wake of men's favourites Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner suffering early exits.
Four-time Roland-Garros champion Swiatek has now joined the list of big-name exits after a comprehensive 7-5 6-1 defeat.
World No.15 Kostyuk showed no mercy as she made it 16 straight wins on clay to reach just her second grand slam quarter-final.
The duo exchanged two breaks each during a frantic middle period of the opening set, but it was Kostyuk who recovered her composure to grab her third, decisive break and nose herself into the lead.
Swiatek responded by instantly getting the better of Kostyuk's serve at the start of the second set, but the Pole then lost all her momentum.
She lost each of her next three service games, while squandering three break points of her own, to fall 5-1 behind, and Kostyuk duly served out a magnificent win at the first time of asking.
Kostyuk will be joined in the last eight by Sorana Cirstea, who downed Wang Xiyu in straight sets.
Kostyuk is just the second player since the WTA Rankings were published in 1975 to win her first 16 clay court matches of a season while being ranked outside the top 10.
The only other woman to do so was Justine Henin in 2005.
"I'm still in shock," Kostyuk said after the match.
"I feel like I've given myself more space to just create something, to challenge my opponents. I woke up in the morning and all I thought was, 'What an unbelievable day I have to live today ... there's nothing I could do other than this'.
"I try not to focus at all on winning and losing, because I'm not playing tennis to win. I'm playing because I love it. I want to connect to people, feel this energy ... make people happy and unite people."
Swiatek said tension got the better of her as her campaign unravelled on a surface she has been known to dominate on for some years now.
"I lost control of the match, and there was no way to come back, because I felt worse and worse," she said after her earliest exit from Paris since her debut campaign in 2019.
"This isn't positive, and this is different than losing to Elina Svitolina in Rome or to Mirra Andreeva in Stuttgart.
"It's not great. I know I lost because I was tense, and my body couldn't do ... the proper things, but it's not the first time, as well. So yeah, I just need to work on it.
"Honestly, maybe the toughest loss is when you had the match in your hands, you made stupid decisions, you let it go and your opponent suddenly came back.
"It's also bad when your tennis is terrible, and you know you were worse than the players you play with. But I feel I lost today because Marta used the opportunity and I was super tense."













