World No.1 Iga Swiatek extended her impressive Qatar TotalEnergies Open winning streak by defeating No.14 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-1, 6-4 in the Round of 16 on Wednesday.
Two-time defending champion Swiatek has now won 10 straight matches at the tournament after besting Alexandrova in their Doha evening showdown. Swiatek improves to 3-1 against Alexandrova with the 1-hour and 31-minute victory.
Swiatek will now play another two-time Doha champion, Victoria Azarenka, in the quarterfinals. Former World No.1 Azarenka beat No.8 seed Jelena Ostapenko 6-0, 6-3 in the night match, for her third win over Ostapenko already this year.
Swiatek's Doha dominance: Overall, Swiatek is 11-1 in Doha, with her lone loss at the tournament coming to Svetlana Kuznetsova in the 2020 second round. The Polish player has not dropped a set at the event since her 2022 first-round match against Viktorija Golubic.
By knocking out World No.19 Alexandrova, Swiatek has won her last 11 matches against Top 20 opposition, and is 4-0 against that group so far this year. Swiatek's last loss to a fellow member of the Top 20 was to Veronika Kudermetova in the Tokyo quarterfinals last September.
Break points fended off: Swiatek needed to save three separate groupings of break points against Alexandrova, who had patches of exceptionally big hitting. Swiatek staved off two break points in the opening game, then four more in the first game of the second set.
The trickiest game was the last one of the match, where Swiatek saw four match points disappear, with a break point for Alexandrova on either side of that quartet.
Alexandrova came up with stellar returns to erase Swiatek's first four match points, as she tried to pull the second set back on serve. However, Swiatek came through on her fifth match point and she successfully finished the match 8-for-8 on break points saved.
Azarenka beats Ostapenko again: Four-time Grand Slam champion Swiatek will now face two-time Australian Open champion Azarenka in Thursday's quarterfinals. Swiatek is 2-1 against Azarenka, and Swiatek has won their two most recent matches.
Azarenka, the Doha champion in back-to-back years in 2012 and 2013, cruised past Ostapenko in 1 hour and 28 minutes in the nightcap. With her Wednesday night win, Azarenka has extended her undefeated record against Ostapenko to 5-0 (3-0 in 2024).
For now, Ostapenko is still this year's match-win leader, with 14 victories so far in 2024 -- but all three of her losses this season have come at the hands of Azarenka.
8 - Iga Swiatek is the fifth player to make the quarter-finals for 8+ consecutive WTA-1000 appearances since the format introduction in 2009 after Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, Agnieszka Radwanska and Ashleigh Barty. Routine.
10 - Iga Swiatek has become the fourth player to win 10+ consecutive matches at the Qatar Open since the inception of the tournament in 2001, after Victoria Azarenka (14 wins in a row), Maria Sharapova (12) and Petra Kvitova (also 10). Feeling.
11 - Iga Swiatek has won her last 11 matches v top-20 (her such longest such winning streak is 21): she is the 5th player in 2000s with multiple streaks of more than 10 top-20 wins in a row - after Henin, Davenport and Williams sisters. Turbo.
3 - Only Agnieszka Radwanska (five in a row between 2012 and 2016) has made more consecutive quarter-finals at the Qatar Open than Iga Swiatek since the inception of the tournament in 2001 (three, 2022-2024). Aga-Iga.
7.2 - Iga Swiatek is the player with the fewest games dropped on average per match in WTA-1000 events since the introduction of the format in 2009 (7.2) - Serena Williams is the second-best with 7.8. Flawless.
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