­­The Class of 2020 series recognises and celebrates players who have had a successful year progressing along the ITF player pathway, and beyond. The tennis calendar may have been disrupted due to the Covid-19 pandemic but that hasn’t stopped players making their mark and advancing their careers. The third of our five categories this week focuses on two players whose breakthroughs at Roland Garros grabbed headlines worldwide, shining a light on their ITF Junior careers in the process.

More from the ITF Class of 2020:
Part 1 - Junior year-end No.1s
Part 2 - Player grant recipients

They’ll always have Paris.

Iga Swiatek, Poland’s first Grand Slam singles champion and the lowest-ranked Roland Garros winner since WTA rankings began, and Hugo Gaston, who produced one of the great upsets of the 2020 season in Paris before threatening to eclipse it in the next round, were the talk of the tennis universe in late September and early October of this year.

Their spellbinding performances on the autumnal clay mark a watershed in their respective careers – the moment Swiatek signalled her ascent to the upper echelons of the women’s game in devastating fashion, and a watershed tournament for Gaston, who underscored a precocious ability to punch well above his weight, both physically and reputationally.

Ending the season at No.17 in the world, 19-year-old Swiatek is the top-ranking teenager on the WTA Tour and one of four teens inside the top 50s of the ATP and WTA, along with No.30 Amanda Anisimova, No.37 Jannik Sinner, and No.48 Coco Gauff – the latter two who were named in this category in the ITF Class of 2019.

Like Gauff and Sinner, Swiatek combined time on the ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors and Women’s circuits to prime her for greater things. In 2016, she helped Poland to the Junior Fed Cup by BNP Paribas title while also making an immediate impression on the professional scene, winning the title on her first main-draw appearance in Stockholm.

Her ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors ranking peaked at No.5 in the world at the end of a 2018 season that saw her lift the Wimbledon girls’ singles title and US Open girls’ doubles title, with USA’s Caty McNally, and doubles gold at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires alongside Slovenia’s Kaja Juvan.

“Everything on court changed since winning Wimbledon,” Swiatek said in 2019. By then she was a seven-time winner on the ITF World Tennis Tour and making the transition to the WTA Tour full-time. In that context, her rise was no shock; indeed, in 2019 she ended the year as the WTA world No.61, a season in which she made her first tour-level final in Lugano, reached the fourth round at Roland Garros before losing to defending champion Simona Halep, and won a round at both the Australian and US Opens.

Nevertheless, her 2020 Roland Garros triumph was truly stunning.

It was not just the sight of the 19-year-old lifting the Coupe Suzanne-Lenglen – the youngest player to do so since Monica Seles in 1992 – but the manner of her surge to the title. She did not drop a set in Paris, and was not even extended as far as a tiebreak through seven matches – a run that included wins over Grand Slam finalists Marketa Vondrousova and Eugenie Bouchard, top seed Halep, and Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin in the final.

“Even though I knew I have potential and I knew that I can win big tournaments, because I won junior Wimbledon in 2018, I still had my doubts,” Swiatek told WTA Insider. “I think I knew in the back of my head that I can do pretty nice things on court, but also it's hard for me to be confident all the time. After the round-of-16 win over Simona I felt like I'm in the right place mentally, and right now, I can win with anyone.”

A week earlier, all eyes had been on a diminutive Frenchman with a big heart and the softest hands in Paris. Gaston arrived at Roland Garros as a wild card without a tour-level win to his name; he left with the scalp of a three-time Grand Slam champion on his resume, before following his third-round win over Stan Wawrinka by giving recently crowned US Open champ Dominic Thiem a scare in a gripping five-set contest.

For the uninitiated it may appear that world No.239 Gaston, who turned 20 as the tournament began, appeared out of nowhere to become the lowest-ranked player to reach the fourth round in Paris since compatriot Arnaud Di Pasquale in 2002. But the Frenchman’s breakthrough was firmly rooted in an impressive junior career of titles, medals and a single-digit ranking.

It is an ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors CV to envy: victory at the 2017 Grade A Orange Bowl; winning the Australian Open boy's doubles crown with Clement Tabur in 2018; and going on to claim singles gold at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, culminating in a rise to No.2 in the world.

And while Paris played host to his first tour-level victories – propelling his ranking to a career-high No.157, now No.162 – it was not his first taste of noteworthy success on the professional scene. In 2019 he cut his teeth on the ITF World Tennis Tour, claiming four titles in 2019 at M25 Santa Marghertia Di Pula, M25 Houston, M25 Norman, and M25+H Rodez, before turning his focus to the ATP Challenger circuit in 2020 and making his major debuts in Melbourne and Paris.

Jaume Munar had his number at the Australian Open but at Roland Garros, Gaston played some of the finest tennis of his young career. Having beaten Maxime Janvier and Yoshihito Nishioka, he sentenced 2015 champion Wawrinka to death by a thousand drop shots, executing one of the trickiest, feel-centric strokes time and time again en route to a monumental 2-6 6-3 6-3 4-6 6-0 victory.

Up next: Thiem, the two-time Roland Garros finalist and recently-crowned US Open champion. Again Gaston was fearless, driving the Austrian to distraction with a fresh flurry of featherlight droppers, but this time coming up short in a 6-4 6-4 5-7 3-6 6-3 defeat.

A season that began outside the ATP top 250 ends with an assured berth in Grand Slam qualifying draws in 2021 and no doubt a top-100 year-end target in 2021. It may not have ended with trophies and medals as in previous years, but, in his own words, Gaston ranks 2020 as “my best so far on the tour.”

“It was amazing for me to be so competitive against some of the best players especially in my ‘home’ tournament in Roland Garros,” Gaston told ITFTennis.com. “I will never forget the atmosphere, even if it was in front of a small crowd because of Covid. I am looking forward to seeing what 2021 will bring. Hopefully we will come back to something close to normal, I am very motivated to do my best and improve my game.”