Mumbai: The highlights from Iga Swiatek’s last match go by in a blur. Particularly those of the ‘breadstick’ she was handed in the first set.

In the last few years that the 23-year-old has dominated the women’s tour, the ‘Swiatek Bakery’ has become common parlance in tennis. She has handed out bagels and breadsticks (winning sets 6-0 and 6-1 respectively) almost at will. Consider this: from the start of the 2022 season till a week before last year’s French Open, Swiatek had won a set 6-0 or 6-1 in 49 percent of her matches.

But on Court Centrale at Foro Italico in Rome, nearly a fortnight ago, she was beaten 6-1, 7-5 by Danielle Collins in the third round of the Italian Open, where she was the defending champion.

Swiatek has been bagel-ed or breadstick-ed six times this season, four in her last two competitions alone. For a player hoping to become the first woman in over a century to win four consecutive titles at Roland Garros, Swiatek’s French Open buildup has not been ideal.

“This year I feel like I’m struggling a bit more with my perfectionism,” Swiatek had said during the Italian Open. “I want to focus on being disciplined on the court and making right choices, not the choices that sometimes pop out in my head, but being really solid.”

In the last three editions of the French Open, the battle among players was mainly about who would finish runner-up to the Pole. But while Swiatek, who has not won a title since clinching her fifth Grand Slam title in Paris last year, has struggled, her peers have taken a step up, making the women’s draw anybody’s game.

The front-runner to challenge Swiatek’s Parisian throne is world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka. A compulsive hard-hitter, Sabalenka has grown out of being a talented under-achiever to a three-time Grand Slam champion.

All her achievements at the Majors though – the 2023 and 2024 Australian Open and 2024 US Open – have been on hard courts. Conquering clay is perhaps the next on her bucket list. She travels to Paris on the back of some decent results, having won the Madrid Masters for the third time in her career.

The finalist in the Spanish capital, Coco Gauff, is also one of the leading players in the women’s field. The world No.2, now 21, has continued to grow in stature. Though she favours hard courts, she does have clay court pedigree, having won the junior French Open title in 2018, when she was only 14, and finish as runner-up in 2022.

The 2023 US Open winner, who is the reigning WTA Finals champion, has also had a good run-up to the French Open this year, with finalist finishes in Madrid and Rome.

The defeat in Italy came at the hands of pocket dynamo Jasmine Paolini. At 29, the world No.4 Italian is a late-bloomer. 2024 was her breakthrough season. She won her biggest title at the WTA 1000 event in Dubai in 2024, then punched above her weight to reach the final at both the French Open and Wimbledon Championships – the first player since Serena Williams in 2016 to do so. That same season, she won the doubles gold medal with Sara Errani at the Paris Olympics and then led Italy to the Billie Jean King Cup title.

Often understated, the title in Rome makes Paolini one of the top contenders at Roland Garros.

The last time however, a tournament was held on the fabled Parisian clay, it was China’s Qinwen Zheng who emerged as the winner, clinching the women’s singles gold on Court Philippe Chatrier at the 2024 Olympics in August.

During that run, the world No.8 even pulled off a straight-sets win over Swiatek in the semi-final, on the very surface the Pole had seemed indestructible just a month earlier. Last week, she even managed to overcome Sabalenka for the first time, after six consecutive defeats to the Belarusian. And with it, she gave her signal of intent.

Gauff, however, has arguably an easier run to the final. In the American’s half of the draw, she could face the likes of 2021 French Open Barbora Krejcikova, sixth seed Mirra Andreeva and compatriots Jessica Pegula and Madison Keys. Meanwhile, Sabalenka, Swiatek, Paolini and Zheng are all in the other half.

The challengers to Swiatek’s crown have thrown down the gauntlet. But it’s not to say that the Pole is going away that easily. By her own standards, she has not had a good season.

But she has won 27 off 36 matches, reached four semi-finals and three quarter-finals. She has also handed out 17 bagels and breadsticks this season.