World No.1 Iga Swiatek toppled No.15 seed and two-time former champion Elina Svitolina in the third round of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on Wednesday 6-1, 6-4 to run her winning streak in the Middle East to six straight.
The Doha champion Swiatek won seven straight games from 1-1 in the first set to put herself in good position against Svitolina — who’d won their last meeting in three sets in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon last summer — and edged a tighter second set that saw five combined service breaks to advance to the quarterfinals in Dubai for the second year in a row.
Stat of the match: Now 2-1 against Svitolina all-time after the 1-hour, 24-minute win, Swiatek has now won 25 of her last 26 matches dating back to a fourth-round loss to Jelena Ostaptenko at the US Open last summer and is on a 13-match winning streak against Top 20 players.
Swiatek speaks: The World No.1 credited her decision-making in helping her finish off the straight-sets win. She had leads of 2-0 and 4-2 in the second set, but quelled a Svitolina rally by breaking at 4-4 — and serving out victory after saving a break point for 5-5.
“I felt like she played better in the second set,” she told reporters after the match. “It wasn’t that easy to just finish points and win points.
“I wanted to stay focused and proactive and kind of make decisions but not too risky. I felt like we were both good in the longer rallies, so I needed to really push in the right time to make pressure. I think decision making and placement was the most important thing, I would say.”
13-0 in her last 13 matches against top 20 players 😎@iga_swiatek powers past Svitolina 6-1, 6-4 in Dubai!#DDFTennis pic.twitter.com/sPINypnEeq
— wta (@WTA) February 21, 2024
Quarterfinal outlook: Up next for Swiatek is another rematch: For a spot in the final four, she’ll face No.6 seed Zheng Qinwen, the Australian Open finalist, who beat Anastasia Potapova 6-3, 6-2.
Swiatek is 5-0 against Zheng, but has lost a set in three of those matches. But their last meeting came just last month at the United Cup — weeks before Zheng reached her first major final in Melbourne — and Swiatek eased to a 6-2, 6-3 win.
“She’s progressing, but I felt like I still could play good tennis against her,” Swiatek said. “I don’t know about Australia because I got to say I didn’t see any of her match[es]. When I lost [in the third round to Linda Noskova], I just completely cut off any tennis in my life. So it’s hard for me to say.
“She’s at this moment in her career, I mean everybody is when they’re 21, 22, 23, when they’re improving a lot.”
