World number one Iga Swiatek extended her perfect record against Coco Gauff to 6-0 with a straight sets victory in the Dubai WTA semi-finals yesterday. Swiatek triumphed 6-4, 6-2 to set up a championship showdown with Barbora Krejcikova, who knocked out third seed Jessica Pegula 6-1, 5-7, 6-0.
Swiatek, who retained her Doha crown last week, will be targeting a sixth WTA 1000 title today. Each time she has reached the quarter-finals at this level in the past, the 21-year-old Pole has gone on to win the title. She has dropped a mere nine games en route to the final, making it the fewest games every dropped by a player on the way to the championship match at a WTA 1000 tournament.
“I feel like it’s little bit easier playing on slower hard courts comparing to what we played in Australia. I just feel like I can do a little bit more, and I’m kind of using that,” explained Swiatek about her current ruthless form. “It’s a combination of couple of things because I also worked really hard to get my confidence back in Warsaw. And technique also I feel much better.”
Today’s final will be a rematch of last autumn’s Ostrava title decider, which Krejcikova won in three sets over Swiatek. Krejcikova, a French Open champion and runner-up in Dubai in 2021, needed two hours to avenge her recent Australian Open defeat to Pegula, who played with a heavily-strapped thigh and couldn’t celebrate her 29th birthday with a win.
She will take a 1-2 head-to-head record into her final against three-time major champion Swiatek.
Alcaraz advances at Rio Open
World number two Carlos Alcaraz beat 86th-ranked Fabio Fognini of Italy in a thriller on Thursday to advance to the quarterfinals of the ATP Rio Open. The 19-year-old Spanish phenom battled back after losing the first set, going on to win 6-7 (5-7), 6-2, 6-4.
Fognini, a 35-year-old veteran with nine singles titles, went down 3-0 to the defending champion in the opening set, before battling back with a string of masterful rallies. He broke Alcaraz’s serve to equalize at 5-5, then won the set in a tie-breaker. But Alcaraz roared back in the second, going up 4-0, and carried his momentum through the final set to take the match. The dramatic display had the crowd at stadium court fired up. Alcaraz will face Dusan Lajovic in the quarterfinals.
The 80th-ranked Lajovic beat 57th-ranked Laslo Djere 6-2, 6-4 in an all-Serbian showdown. Alcaraz, who returned last week from a four-month injury break, is looking to rekindle the magic he unleashed last year in Brazil.
Then, he won the Rio Open on his way to racking up five titles, including the US Open, and becoming the youngest-ever world number one in the ATP rankings.
Poland's Iga Swiatek in action during her semi final match against Coco Gauff (not pictured) of the US. (REUTERS)
