Will Swiatek win 33 in a row?

While the big favourites in the men’s competition have hardly shown any weaknesses so far, this has not been the case in the women’s competition. Only one player from the top ten seedings has reached the quarter-finals. World number one Iga Swiatek has so far lived up to her role as favourite and underpins her status as world number one. Iga Swiatek and Jessica Pegula will now face each other in the quarter-finals.

The US-American is currently in the form of her life and has already delivered great results this year. Nevertheless, the bookmakers are giving her almost no chance in her first Paris quarter-final because the young Pole – who celebrates her birthday on Tuesday – is the absolute high-flyer in women’s tennis at the moment. Betting odds of just over 1.10 are offered for a win by Swiatek against Pegula.

But these betting odds are not surprising either, because before the quarter-finals, betting odds of just over 1.30 are offered on the tournament victory of the only remaining top ten player. There is nothing to doubt about the role of the world number one as favourite.

Iga Swiatek – Statistics & current form

On 23 March, Australian Ashleigh Barty, the reigning world number one, announced her retirement from professional sport. As a result, Poland’s Swiatek became the new number one in the women’s world rankings overnight.

32 wins in a row!

There is no denying that the Pole is a worthy world number one. For weeks now, Iga Swiatek has been presenting herself in captivating form. Swiatek’s last defeat on the WTA Tour came on 16 February in the second round of Dubai (against Jelena Ostapenko), and since then she has won one match after another.

One day before her 22nd birthday, Iga Swiatek celebrated her 32nd win in a row against the Chinese surprise Qinwen Zheng. However, Swiatek had to do a little lap of honour, because after winning 20 sets in a row, she acted a little carelessly in the first set and first gave away a 5:2 before she was also leading 5:2 in the following tiebreak, but still lost it.

With 6:0 and 6:2 she did not let anything go in the second and third sets and underlined her very strong form, even though the young Chinese had to struggle with thigh problems. Nevertheless, Swiatek made an unusually large number of errors (39 unforced errors) and had problems with the aggressive play of the Chinese player.

However, this does not change the fact that Swiatek, who has already won the French Open 2020 (her first tournament win on the WTA Tour), is currently by far the best player on the WTA Tour. For Swiatek against Pegula, odds of around 1.40 are offered for the favourite to win another two sets. Not particularly high, but justified in view of her strength on clay courts and her outstanding form.

Jessica Pegula – Statistics & current form

Whoever decides to play tennis at an early age has to make great sacrifices. For example, Dominic Thiem dropped out of school and put everything on the tennis card. This means that the pressure of possible failure is enormous. In Jessica Pegula’s case, the financial pressure was not there, but that is exactly what was a burden for the US American.

Her father is a natural gas billionaire who owns the Buffallo Bills (football) and Buffalos Sabres (ice hockey). However, Pegula was determined to find her own identity and break out of the family empire. However, this attitude coupled with many injuries (hip, knee) increasingly damaged her. Only after she, according to her own statements, came to appreciate the family aspect, did success set in.

Best season of her career

The 2022 season still has some highlights to offer, but already Pegula can look back on the strongest season of her career. She also reached the quarter-finals at the Australian Open, even the semi-finals in Miami and was only beaten in the final at the top clay court event in Madrid.

The successes of the last few months have brought a certain lightness of touch. Pegula moves much better, has more time to practice her stroke and can minimise the number of easy mistakes. The now 28-year-old US-American is in the form of her life and will have a single-digit world ranking after Paris for the first time in her career.

In Paris, Pegula is looking at a rather lucky draw so far, having had to beat number 129 (Qiang Wang), number 36 (Anhelina Kalinina), number 25 (Tamara Zidansek) and number 63 (Irina-Camelia Begu) on her way to the top eight. She has yet to face an absolute top opponent. Despite the strong results in 2022, it is therefore not advisable to predict Swiatek against Pegula as an underdog.

Iga Swiatek – Jessica Pegula Direct comparison / H2H balance

Head to Head: 1:1

The first time the two ladies faced each other was in July 2019. At the time, Iga Siwatek was just 18 years young and was defeated by the US American in three sets in the second round in Washington. The second encounter took place in the semi-finals of Miami 2022, with the world number one from Poland coming out on top in two sets.

Iga Swiatek – Jessica Pegula Tip

This quarter-final is also the duel of the two best remaining players according to the current world rankings – and yet hardly anyone is expecting an exciting match, because everything points to the tip in favour of the number one in the duel between Iga Swiatek and Jessica Pegula. After 32 wins in a row and the fact that clay courts are her strongest surface, this assessment is obvious. In addition, the clay courts of this world are not necessarily the surface that suits Pegula’s high-pressure game.

A two-set win for the young Pole is very likely and yet there are two more bets to be found in our presented top tips that suggest a closer match than the betting odds suggest. Pegula also has enormous self-confidence and Swiatek has been more negligent of late. Accordingly, the forecast for the duel between Swiatek and Pegula is interesting: Over 18.5 games or Pegula +5.5 games. The current world number eleven can definitely be expected to win at least seven games, so a bet of six units is recommended for the Over 18.5 Games bet