No.1 seed Iga Swiatek continued her dominance of No.5 seed Coco Gauff in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships semifinals, winning 6-4, 6-2 in 1 hour and 28 minutes.
Swiatek has yet to lose a set to Gauff in six meetings to date. The Pole advances to her 15th career final, and ninth at WTA 1000 level or above. She improves her undefeated record in WTA 1000 semifinals to 6-0, and extends her active winning streak to six following her successful title defence last week in Doha.
Since Swiatek's fourth-round loss at the Australian Open to Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina, the World No.1 has dropped just 14 games in six matches. But this was her tightest of those contests by some distance, and the only one in which Swiatek has not won a 6-0 or 6-1 set. Gauff also managed to win more games than she has managed in any encounter with Swiatek since their first, where she fell 7-6(3), 6-3 at Rome 2021.
Swiatek will face either No.3 seed Jessica Pegula, whom she defeated 6-3, 6-0 in the Doha final last week, or former Roland Garros champion Barbora Krejcikova in the final. Last October in Ostrava, Krejcikova snapped Swiatek's 10-match winning streak in finals with a 5-7, 7-6(4), 6-3 upset.
How the match was won: Swiatek's strategy of engaging the American in forehand-to-forehand exchanges is one that's served her well in all their meetings to date, and she deployed it again from the very first point of the match.
Keen to avoid it, Gauff went for bigger shots earlier in rallies on her backhand side, resulting in several fizzing winners. But more often than not, Swiatek's heavy first strikes enabled her to set the pace, and pummeling the Gauff forehand garnered her the first break of the match for 2-1. Of Gauff's 20 unforced errors in the first set, 16 came from the forehand side.
Swiatek played her shakiest match of the Middle East swing to date, with some uncharacteristically loose games scattered throughout. She failed to serve out the first set at her first attempt due to a slew of backhand mistakes; and up 4-1 in the second, a pair of double faults cost her one of her breaks.
But these were only blips. Swiatek closed out the opening set on her fifth set point after a high-octane baseline rally ended with another Gauff forehand error; and a stellar pass enabled her to break Gauff again for 5-2 in the second set before serving out the match with ease.
In Swiatek's words: "I'm pretty happy that tennis is working out, because writing and talking -- not my thing right now!" said Swiatek, whose post-match camera message involved much crossing out and restarting, and whose on-court interview was punctuated by coughing.
"Coco is a great player and I knew it was going to be tough. Especially after last year when we played five times, because you never know if you're going to see something new or not."
As for what the troublesome message said in the end?
"I heard that my dad is going to come to the final, and I wanted make sure that he will, because it's not often that he comes to matches. I wanted to pressure him!"
The fact that Iga losing more than a few games is made into a big deal just shows what exceptional level she's currently at.
She has set her own standards so extraordinarily high since losing in Australia that now people are literally expecting her to win everything with ease.
But in reality she's still only human, and really the fact that she has been able to play like this while battling what seems to be a very nasty cold just makes everything all the more impressive.
So now the 2022 Ostrava final rematch is set.
It'll be Swiatek vs Krejcikova once more, last time it was a 3 hour marathon that went Krejcikova's way.
Oddly/unfortunately enough Iga was battling a cold in that as well.
But it's a new match, a different time of year, with Iga once again reasserting herself.
I don't want to jinx it, but my gut tells me Iga might get her revenge.
Ostrava was voted as WTA's match of the year last season, and something tells me we may have a new contender tomorrow.
One more push to the finish.
Jazda!
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