PARIS • Since they both lost in the opening round in Rome, at their only clay-court tournament before the French Open, Sofia Kenin and Iga Swiatek have taken radically different paths to their unexpected places in today's final.
Kenin, the 21-year-old American who won the Australian Open in February, has had to scrap and improvise to avert defeat, fighting through four three-set matches.
But she has worked her way into a much more authoritative place, as she demonstrated on Thursday. She blunted Petra Kvitova's power and read the angles of her game, taking a quick step in just the right direction and repeatedly winning the exchanges that mattered most in a 6-4, 7-5 semi-final victory.
"She just has something you can't teach: The bigger the point, the more she wants it," said former world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport, now a Tennis Channel analyst.
Swiatek, an unseeded 19-year-old from Poland, has not had to dig nearly so deep. Instead, she has been a force of nature, constructing points and demolishing opponents without losing a set.
Out of nowhere in this Grand Slam, no one has come close to finding a solution to her compact blend of offence and defence.
Not the No. 1 seed and former champion Simona Halep, whom Swiatek crushed, 6-1, 6-2, in the fourth round. Not the qualifier Nadia Podoroska, whom Swiatek routed 6-2, 6-1 in a semi-final that lasted little more than an hour.
Swiatek has yet to win a Tour title, yet she came close to playing in two Grand Slam finals this weekend. She and partner Nicole Melichar fell to Desirae Krawczyk and Alexa Guarachi 6-7 (5-7), 6-1, 4-6 in yesterday's women's doubles semi-finals.
"It seems unreal," said Swiatek, who is ranked 54th in singles and decided to put off going to university for two years in order to try to make it in tennis.
"On one hand, I know that I can play great tennis. On the other hand, it's kind of surprising for me. I never would have thought that I'm going to be in the final."
If she prevails she will become the youngest player to lift the Suzanne Lenglen Cup since Monica Seles (18) in 1992.
The women's tournament has been a dizzying succession of upsets and introductions, with players like Argentina's Podoroska, 23, making their French Open debuts with rankings outside the top 100 and outplaying the veterans.
The match between the fourth-seeded Kenin and seventh-seeded Kvitova was only the fourth between seeded players in the women's singles. The men will have a total of 11 such matches.
But it is hard to call the final a fluke. Swiatek's game has been irresistible, and Kenin has shown she belongs at this lofty level, winning her first Major title at the Australian Open by beating local hero Ashleigh Barty and two-time Major champion Garbine Muguruza.
Kenin reached the fourth round of the US Open last month, is 16-1 in Grand Slam singles play this year and is in her second Major final of the season. She has turned things around after losing, 6-0, 6-0, to Victoria Azarenka last month in Rome.
"I'm just really grateful with the way that I'm playing, with the way things are going," said Kenin, who had never been past the quarter-finals in a clay-court event until this tournament. "It's not easy getting to a Grand Slam final. Having two this year, it's really special."
NYTIMES, REUTERS
