Swiatek, 20, now owns the joint-fifth longest streak this century, matching the 26 consecutive wins with which Victoria Azarenka began 2012. Only Venus Williams, Serena Williams and Justine Henin have won more matches in a row since 2000.
"Being in that kind of group is like a dream come true for me," she said afterward. "I wouldn't think of that when I was younger. I'm pretty happy that I could do that because consistency was the thing I really wanted to work on last year. This year I feel like it clicked."
Swiatek has also won 38 of her past 39 sets dating back to the fourth round of Indian Wells, with the only dropped set coming to Liudmila Samsonova in the Stuttgart semifinals. The 2020 Roland Garros champion continued her pattern of excelling in the last eight. Swiatek has now won 12 of her 13 tour-level quarterfinals, with the only exception being her loss to Maria Sakkari at Roland Garros 2021.
It was the first pro meeting between two players who captured their first Grand Slams as teenagers within the past three years. Swiatek and Andreescu, the 2019 US Open champion, met only once, as juniors, with Swiatek winning 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 in 2016 Junior Fed Cup action.
Match management: The opening set momentum shifted back and forth. Swiatek had the brighter start, firing a series of backhand winners to take a 2-0 lead. Andreescu hit back with three games on the trot to edge in front, 3-2. Swiatek responded with her own trio of games, slamming a forehand crosscourt to seal a 5-3 lead. Some strong returning from Andreescu pegged the World No.1 back to 5-5.
Fittingly, the opening act was decided by a tiebreak. Andreescu was rattled on the third point by an overrule in favour of Swiatek, who seized the last momentum shift and stayed on the front foot, sealing her first set point with a backhand one-two punch.
Swiatek on preparing to face Andreescu: "I wasn't really expecting anything because I didn't actually know how she's playing after the break. I watched many of her matches before she did that break. Right now I didn't know if her tennis is the same or it changed a little bit.
"But I knew that physically I can play longer rallies and also play longer matches. So basically I was ready for that. Also, I knew that she's going to change rhythm. She did that, which was pretty tricky. Just knowing that, I was just ready for it. Tactically I knew it about it, so I'm pretty happy that we prepared well."
Looking ahead: Swiatek leads the overall head-to-head with Sabalenka 2-1, including both of their meetings this year in the Doha quarterfinals and Stuttgart final. Across those two matches, Swiatek conceded only nine games.
With this win the list of records for Iga in 2022:
35 wins
26 in a row 
20-0 in WTA1000s
38 of last 39 sets won
13 
12 
7 SF in 8 events
1000500 in a row
4740 race points
92.11% win rate
9 wins as no1
8 wins over GS champs
6 wins over former no1sWell it wasn't a 3 set battle, but the first set was a real see-saw affair.
The way Iga turned it on in the 2nd is just so on par with what she has been doing since February of this year. It's astonishing really.
For a set Andreescu was able to hang with Iga and give as good as she got. Yet I also can't help but think Iga could have won the set more easily had she started out serving better.
She had similar serving issues in Azarenka's match. But raised her percentage in the 2nd and thus won more easily.
She's playing well, but not quite firing on all cylinders yet if we compare it to her level before taking a break after Madrid. Yet somehow she's still able to win the match.
I'm just imaging when she finally gets more comfortable on clay (as she herself said she's still finding her comfort level) how much better she'll be. And that's a scary thought. For her opponents that is.
Speaking of her opponent, Aryna Sabalenka will attempt to best Iga for the 3rd time this year (4th overall).
Her last 2 attempts didn't go so well, but it looks like she's going into this one with a different mind set, a more calm playing strategy (and is playing better then she has since Aussie Open).
Will the change in mind set be enough though?.
That's what I'll be tuning in to see.
Sabalenka's power, or ground strokes won't scare Iga off as she has proven she can turn Sabelenka's power around in her favor with her speed and returning on the court.
If Sabalenka has a really good serving day she does have the ability to hit anyone off the court.
And with Iga's serving woes thus for in Rome it won't make life easy. But on the other hand given Iga's over all record in Master 1000 semi finals I'm confident Iga will find a way even if Sabalenka manages to make it really tough.
Her ability to raise her level at this stage in each tournament has become a constant this year. So something tells me whatever level Sabalenka manages to find Iga will be there to match it.
And I cannot wait to see it.
Though I think this time I'm going to spare myself the stress and watch the match on reply around lunch time.
The semi starts at 12 noon local time in Rome which is 6am for me.
And I desperately need to catch up on my sleep before the start of Roland Garros in a week. 5am matches are a killer on my sleep cycle.
Expecting more of a battle this time around, but rooting and hoping for the best.
Jazda Iga keep that winning train rolling!.
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