Saturday, October 09, 2021

Iga Swiatek posts first victory on debut at Indian Wells

The last time the BNP Paribas Open was played, Iga Swiatek lost in qualifying. More than 30 months later, now the No. 2 seed and a Grand Slam champion, she cruised in her tournament main-draw debut. Swiatek needed just 71 minutes Friday to defeat Petra Martic 6-1, 6-3 in the California desert.


Though she was denied a first-set bagel, Swiatek won nine of the first 10 games against the World No.45 in their first meeting.

From there, the second set proved more complex for Swiatek, where Martic broke her twice after falling behind 6-1, 3-0 and later denied her an opportunity to serve out victory. But with a forehand winner — her 19th overall winner of the match — Swiatek broke Martic for the sixth time in eight return games to move safely through to the third round.

"In 2019, I wasn't playing that confident, but I'm really happy that times have changed now," Swiatek in her on-court interview. "There are many places [I haven't played] because I couldn't finish my season in 2019, and last year, we only had six tournaments, so it's pretty exciting.

"I think I gave a lot of power to my shots, and that was the key. She can play great topspin, and as soon as she's going to get good pace, she can do that. This surface is slow, so the topspin is jumping high. I just wanted to be aggressive from the beginning and not let her play her game.

"In the second set, I lost focus for one game and she broke me pretty fast, so I knew I just had to keep going and not stop for a second time."

Swiatek advances to a meeting with No. 25 seed Veronika Kudermetova, who came through an all-Russian affair against Liudmila Samsonova, 6-2, 6-3.

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