The Polish third seed endured a miserable 25th birthday as she went down 7-5, 6-1 to Madrid Open winner Marta Kostyuk.

Since winning Roland Garros in her second appearance at the tournament in 2020, Swiatek had never gone more than two years without hoisting aloft the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen, but after Aryna Sabalenka ended her bid to win a fourth consecutive title in the semi-finals last year, she has lost her unbeatable status on clay.

Indeed since last winning in Paris in 2024, Swiatek has only lifted three titles in the two subsequent seasons.

"I feel, like, for sure I lost today because Marta used the opportunity, and I was super tense," she said.

"It is harder a bit to handle stress for me in, like, (the) last year.

"So I feel like today I felt off, you know, and I did mistakes that I didn't want to do, and I wanted to play safe, but the ball flew everywhere.

"Suddenly these feelings came back, and I tried to work on it with my dialogue inside, but it was tough today. Yeah, so it all kind of went drastically down, and I played worse and worse."

After breaking Kostyuk in the first set to edge 4-3 ahead, Swiatek's serve totally deserted her and she failed to hold again as the Ukrainian hit back to claim the opener and then raced through the second frame.

For Kostyuk, reaching a first quarter-final at Roland Garros was just the latest high mark in a fine clay-court season, in which she claimed the 250-level event in Rouen, as well as a first WTA 1000 title in the Spanish capital.