STUTTGART -- World No.1 Swiatek will face No.4 Ons Jabeur in the semifinals of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. The defending champion booked her return to the Stuttgart semifinals by coming back from a set down to defeat 2018 champion Karolina Pliskova 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 in the quarterfinals.
The only previous time Swiatek and Pliskova met came in the 2021 Rome final, which Swiatek won 6-0, 6-0. On Friday night at the Porsche Arena, Pliskova quickly wiped away her memories of that day. Taking advantage of a slow start from Swiatek, Pliskova raced out to a 4-0 lead after just 17 minutes. But Swiatek gradually found her rhythm and took advantage of Pliskova's serve to turn the match around.
"Overall I felt like at the beginning I couldn't really focus," Swiatek said. "When she's serving, these are like really milliseconds that matter. So I feel like I was playing already good tennis at the end of the first set, but it was already too late kind of to even the score."
Swiatek responded by winning the first four games of the second and raced to the finish line to force the first deciding set of her season. After breaking for a 2-1 lead, Swiatek came through the biggest game of the match, saving two break points to consolidate the lead to 3-1. Swiatek protected her lead well from there, closing out the win after 2 hours and 1 minute.
Swiatek will now face Jabeur for a sixth time, with the World No.1 holding a narrow 3-2 lead in their head-to-head series. Swiatek won their two high-stakes meetings last year. The first came in the Rome final, which Swiatek won 6-2, 6-2 to defend her title. The second came in the US Open final, where she prevailed 6-2, 7-6(5) to win her second major title of the season.
"For sure when you have Ons, you're not gonna expect an easy match," Swiatek said. "It's gonna be a little bit different than most of the matches you play. You have to be ready for different game style. It's pretty exciting, but when you're out there on court it's tough."
Jabeur did not sound intimidated by the prospect of facing Swiatek once again. The Tunisian is full of confidence as she rides a seven-match win streak into the semifinals. Fresh off her first title of the season in Charleston, Jabeur advanced to her first Stuttgart semifinal off two very different wins. She rallied from a 6-1, 5-3 deficit to defeat Jelena Ostapenko 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 in her opener. In the quarterfinals she took a more direct route, playing a near-perfect match to drop only three games to Beatriz Haddad Maia.
As Jabeur looks to make a second consecutive final, she is relishing a chance to avenge last year's two losses. She's the only player to post more wins on clay (40) than Swiatek (39) since the start of the 2020 season.
"The good thing maybe, Iga is not at the same level as she was last year," Jabeur said after the quarterfinals. "I'm gonna really focus on playing like I played her on grass at Wimbledon [in 2021].
"I think maybe the key is to be unpredictable with Iga, not knowing which shots I'm gonna do. I think that's really good to disturb her a lot."
With her win over Pliskova, Swiatek improved to 6-0 in Stuttgart for her career. She is bidding to become the first player to defend the title since Angelique Kerber went back-to-back in 2015 and 2016. Playing her first tournament in over a month after being sidelined by a rib injury, Swiatek is into her fourth semifinal of the season.
"With Ons, these matches are always really just tight so every point matters."
"I just hope it's gonna be a nice match, because I'm pretty happy that I'm back and I can just play in front of audience and feel these emotions. Even though my break wasn't really long, I feel like I really missed that."
Wow. What a match this was.
I expected Pliskova to play well because you can't play worse than she did in Rome, but I didn't expect her to be this good.
After Iga lost the first set I was fearing the worst, given her record in 3 setters this season. But she proved us all wrong and showed that on clay especially she knows how to solve problems and fight.
It was wonderful to see.
Some of the defense Pliskova made Iga put on, was world class/world #1 stuff.
The score makes it look easy but, the third set was anything but!. So proud of Iga, and just so darn happy she's healthy and able to play her game.
Because she really does bring excellence to the sport.
So now it's Ons Jabeur next, honestly with her style of game you can't really prepare yourself because you just don't know what she's gonna do from one shot to the next.
But I'm hoping Iga's speed and athleticism will help her counter the variety (and certainly the dropshots)
It's not gonna be easy, and whatever happens it's gonna be fun.
Jazda!.
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