I Don’t Think it Was Fair

By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Thursday, June 5, 2025
Photo credit: Adam Pretty/Getty

Iga Swiatek said chair umpire Kader Nouni missed the mark on fair play by declining to check a ball mark. 

World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka snapped Swiatek’s 26-match Roland Garros winning streak with a 7-6(1), 4-6, 6-0 semifinal victory over the four-time champion shattering Swiatek’s dream of an Open Era record fourth straight French Open championship.

Former No. 1 Swiatek led 4-2 in the second set, missed a return then pointed to a mark where she believed Sabalenka’s serve landed long and asked chair umpire Nouni to come down from the high chair and inspect the mark.

The veteran French chair umpire declined apparently telling Swiatek she only made the request after realizing her return was going out.

Afterward, Swiatek said she felt there was a double standard saying Nouni checked marks when asked by Sabalenka, but not in that seventh game when she requested it.

“Well, he was coming down to check every mark when Aryna wanted to, even when the outs were like that,” Swiatek said. “When I had a mark that was out, he was convincing me that I only came there because I saw that my return was out, and I framed the return, I knew from the beginning that it’s going to be out, you know.”

The five-time Grand Slam champion said it was unfair to her given the attention she felt the chair umpire gave to Sabalenka’s requests.

“I didn’t really look at the ball. I just went to check the mark, and I saw the mark was out,” Swiatek said. “I want him to come down, but he didn’t. So I don’t think that was fair, especially when he came down, like, every time Aryna asked him to.

I don’t get it, but I don’t really care.”

It’s the third straight Grand Slam final for Sabalenka against an American opponent.

The owner of 20 career titles, Sabalenka beat Jessica Pegula in the 2024 US Open final, was upset by Madison Keys in the Australian Open final in January and will face Gauff in Saturday’s French Open final with both women seeking their maiden Roland Garros championship.

Despite the chair umpire tiff, Swiatek said Sabalenka raised her level and intensity in that shutout final set.

“I think the pace was from her super fast. For sure, especially at the beginning of the match, she played, you know, just kind of as hard as possible and pretty risky,” Swiatek told the media in Paris. “So it was just hard to get into any rally, you know.

“And then, I was able to do that, so the game was kind of, like more things happened because it wasn’t just like serve and one shot or return and one shot, and I could build a rally a little bit.

“Yeah, but in third set I feel like we kind of came back to what happened in first, and she for sure used her chances, and I didn’t really keep up what I was doing in second set.”