By: Iris Xu

After defeating Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus (7-6(5), 6-7(5), 7-5) on Thursday in the match of the tournament, Czech Republic’s Karolina Muchova will play against the best tennis player in the world, Iga Swiatek, in the highly anticipated French Open final on Saturday.

The majority of Karolina Muchova’s games have been won thanks to her powerful and fluid swings. Muchova secured her match against Aryna Sabalenka with a beautiful forehand down the line while serving at 2-5 in the deciding set. Also, she won 20 of the final 24 games to reach her first career Grand Slam final.

According to the New York Times, Muchova, a late-bloomer by Czech Republic standards, started to have injuries in her late teens. A growth spurt increased her height to 5-foot-11, while also causing back and knee problems.

She overcame these injuries, leading her to make it to the quarterfinals of Wimbledon in 2019 and to the semifinals of the Australian Open in 2021. However, with little rest and recovery, new injuries, including a badly sprained ankle, caused her to land in 235th place in the tennis world rankings in 2022, a long way from her highest ranking, of being in 19th, in 2021.

“Many lows, I would say, from one injury to another,” Muchova said after her win on Thursday. “Some doctors told me, you know, maybe you’ll not do sport anymore.”

Trying to stay positive, she struggled through small tournaments in places like Concord, Mass.; Shrewsbury, England; and Angers, France.

Muchova entered the French Open ranked 43rd, then beat the eighth-seeded Maria Sakkari of Greece in the first round and lost only one of five matches. In the blink of an eye, she was playing the deciding third set in front of 15,000 people in a Grand Slam semifinal…

Iga Swiatek, Muchova’s final opponent has won 13 matches in a row at Roland Garros and won this same tournament in both 2020 and 2022. While Swiatek first adopted the kind of complex, all-court game that has won Muchova the ardent admiration of tennis aesthetes, she let go of it early last year in place of a straightforward, more aggressive strategy.

It is now Muchova’s turn to compete against Swiatek.

Four years ago, before either player was the player she is now, the two played against one another, their only face-off. Muchova defeated Swiatek in that match in three sets. That one match might seem like nothing, but it should be known that Muchova has played five games against the top three-ranked tennis players in the world and won every single time.