The 2024 Roland Garros women’s singles semi-finals saw two players heading up north for Saturday’s big final while the other two had to fall short and then walk through the exit door across back-to-back matches at Court Phillipe Chatrier. The first semis match was between 3 x Roland Garros winner and defending champion Iga Swiatek (Poland) and current US Open winner Coco Gauff (USA), with Swiatek off to a flying start where she was absolutely too good throughout the first set before she took her time well against such a difficult opponent (who had some moments to stay in the game at times that late to try & give herself a lifeline) that ensured her berth on what is going to be her 3rd straight Final here in straight sets (6-2 and 6-4).
For Gauff, it was good seeing her add another semi grand slam appearance off the back of her US Open triumph last year v Australian Open specialist Aryna Sabalenka. However, she still needs more time before she can hopefully dethrone Swiatek next time around who isn’t an easy opponent to face, especially from someone who knows a whole lot better on clay. Looking at Swiatek, she’s the queen of clay as we all know who was not only too good but also never lost in a big final before as who is going to be there to stop her in its tracks come Saturday? There’s one opponent we shall find out from the 2nd semi-final tie.
That next semi straight after Swiatek v Gauff was the battle between the first-time Roland Garros semi-finalists of Italian Jasmine Paolini and Mirra Andreeva. The first set was close to begin with where Paolini had the upper advantage and Andreeva showing some fight to hold her opponent back. In the end, Andreeva just couldn’t hold on a bit longer to try and turn things her way as Paolini got the job done with the 1-0 lead and then she was too good to bring the match to a quick close in straight sets (6-3, 6-1). She is now one step closer in hopefully ending Iga Swiatek’s winning Roland Garros hoodoo with the hope of winning her ever first singles grand slam trophy at the age of 28 which is a long, long way from here.
Not only that she’s still in the running alongside fellow compatriot Sara Errani in the women’s doubles semi-final later tonight (our time) v Elena Gabriela-Ruse & Marta Kostyuk, so looks like there’s going to be a bit of extra preparation. Who knows? She could win both the women’s singles and also women’s doubles trophies at the same time in Roland Garros history. And on Andreeva, she too also had a great run here including the 4th round earlier in the year at Melbourne Park having gone from 1-0 down to upset Sabalenka the other day during the Quarter-Final. She’d hoped she could do the same v Paolini where she did the best possible to stop the Italian from reaching the first set but just wasn’t her day unfortunately with the semis elimination on-court. At 17 years old, there’s more to come from Andreeva if she can keep it in the 2nd half of this season.