Iga Swiatek has spoken out after suffering her first defeat at Roland Garros in four years. The four-time champion was bagelled by world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in Thursday’s semi-final, ending her 26-match winning streak at the tournament.

While it obviously wasn’t the result she wanted, Swiatek is already looking ahead to the future and her 7-6(1) 4-6 6-0 semi-final defeat could be a blessing in disguise, giving her an advantage going into Wimbledon.

The world No. 5 has typically struggled at the All England Club. Last year, she was dumped out in the third round, and her best-ever appearance was a quarter-final run in 2023.

As a four-time French Open champion, Swiatek often has little time to regroup and start training on grass after the clay-court Major. But she’s now hoping to spend some time on the practice courts after losing to Sabalenka in the semis.

Looking ahead, the 24-year-old said: “Well, for sure I'm going to have few days off, but the coaches will plan that.

“Hopefully we're going to have some decent kind of little pre-season on grass, because it's always been pretty hard to have that, especially when I want to be a little bit home.

“But I don't feel like I need to be home right now, so maybe I'll go somewhere in Europe, practice.”

Swiatek put up a good fight in the opening set, coming back from a double break down, but she still lost out in a tiebreak. The fifth seed forced a decider but barely won a point in the final set, and Sabalenka steamrolled through.Explaining what happened in the 6-0 set, Swiatek added: “I remember missing, like, two backhands when she broke me first time. And she still served really well.

“I feel like I served the same, and she read my serve much better. So I probably won less points on the return.

“And I don't really know. I think I lost my intensity a bit, and she just played, you know, like pretty strong as in the first set, but I didn't react to that well and just couldn't push back.”

Swiatek’s semi-final defeat at her hunting ground, Roland Garros, is the latest disappointment in what’s been a tricky season for the 24-year-old.

It’s now been a full year since she reached a final at any tournament. Swiatek is 0-7 in semi-finals in 2025.

She suffered a shock third-round exit at last month’s Italian Open, where she was also the defending champion, and fell from No. 2 to No. 5 in the rankings. Swiatek is set to fall even further come Monday, but the Rome defeat took some of the pressure off coming into Paris.

“I think I already changed my mindset before this tournament. Like losing early in Rome gave me some time and perspective, so I wasn't really thinking about points here on this tournament,” she explained.

“Obviously looking at the math, I lost many points right now, but I know that it doesn't really matter. Like, any of us can win these tournaments.

“We kind of start every tournament from the beginning. So I'm just going to try to do my job and focus on, like, just getting progress and learning new stuff on grass right now.”