On her 25th birthday, a fearless Marta Kostyuk dismantled four-time champion Iga Swiatek — handing the Pole her earliest Paris exit in seven years and completing a half-draw that has never won a Grand Slam.
IDEA Television Sports Desk
Marta Kostyuk delivered the biggest result of her career on Sunday at Roland Garros — sweeping four-time champion Iga Swiatek 7-5, 6-1 in just one hour and 40 minutes to reach the quarter-finals for the first time. The victory, arriving on her 25th birthday, confirmed what the 2026 clay season had long been suggesting: Kostyuk is playing the best tennis of her life and has no intention of stopping.
Swiatek had entered the match as a heavy favourite, boasting a staggering record of 43 wins from 46 matches at Roland Garros and four titles from as many finals. Kostyuk, the 15th seed, had never taken so much as a set from the Pole in three prior meetings. Sunday changed all of that — emphatically.
“I woke up this morning and all I thought about was what an unbelievable day I have to live today.”
— Marta Kostyuk, post-match on Court Philippe-Chatrier
The Ukrainian put relentless pressure on Swiatek’s second serve from the first ball, returning everything and breaking the world No. 3 six times across the match — five of those breaks arriving consecutively across Swiatek’s final five service games. Swiatek even served for the opening set at 5-4, but Kostyuk broke back and then seized the momentum, winning eight straight points to storm into the lead. The second set was a masterclass: 25 winners, power from the baseline, and a display of controlled aggression that left Swiatek with nowhere to go.
For Swiatek, the defeat marks her earliest exit at Roland Garros since losing to Simona Halep in the fourth round on her 2019 debut — the year before her first title. She was candid in defeat, admitting the match was lost to tension rather than a shortage of ability. The broader question now for the four-time champion is one she acknowledged herself: how to stop the anxiety from surfacing on the sport’s biggest stages.
With Kostyuk advancing and defending champion Coco Gauff already eliminated in the third round, Swiatek’s exit seals a remarkable reality: for the first time, the Roland Garros women’s trophy is guaranteed to go to a player who has never won a Grand Slam. Last year’s finalist Aryna Sabalenka, Naomi Osaka, and Madison Keys — all major champions on hard courts but never on clay — are in contention from the top quarter of the draw. In Kostyuk’s half, the stage is set for an all-Ukrainian quarter-final that is unprecedented in Grand Slam history.
Seventh seed Elina Svitolina, Kostyuk’s compatriot and a player who has never passed the quarter-final stage at Roland Garros, defeated Belinda Bencic 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 later on Sunday to set up the historic showdown. Their match is currently in progress on Court Philippe-Chatrier, with Kostyuk leading by a set. Whoever wins will become the first Ukrainian woman to reach a Roland Garros semi-final in the Open Era.
