Iga Swiatek wins first US Open title after straight sets victory over Ons Jabeur

The world No 1 lived up to her billing as Iga Swiatek – playing her first major final outside Paris – overcame Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur in straight sets.

A mild-mannered 20-year-old from the suburbs of Warsaw, Swiatek resembles a sociology undergraduate who prefers a late night in the library to propping up the bar. And yet, when she reaches a final, she becomes utterly ruthless, a cold-blooded killer.

The statistics show that Swiatek has now reached 18 finals at all levels of the professional game, starting with a humble $10,000 tournament in Stockholm when she didn’t even have a world ranking.

She has now won 17 of those finals, dropping only a single set in the process. Polona Hercog – the otherwise obscure Slovenian – should take a bow here, as her clay-court success in Lugano three years ago remains the only exception to Swiatek’s rule.

It seems strange to think back to the equivalent occasion last year – the 2021 US Open final – which featured a pair of utterly unexpected combatants in Leylah Fernandez and Emma Raducanu. This time, we were watching the two outstanding players on the tour this season.

Swiatek had won 54 matches in 2022, including an astonishing six titles. Jabeur, despite a seeding of only No 5, had won 44, and would have been seeded higher but for the ridiculous non-inclusion of Wimbledon results in the rankings system this year.

Yet only one of these women has shown an uncanny ability to find the zone every time she plays a trophy match. As Swiatek whaled away with utter conviction, Jabeur was reduced to holding out her palms to her player box in disbelief, or bouncing her racket on the hard surface in frustration. She is known for her jolliness off the court, earning the nickname of “Minister of Happiness” in some quarters. Here, though, she looked to be grinding her teeth together.