Iga Swiatek saw her pursuit of a second career Sunshine Double come to an abrupt end after she suffered an upset defeat to Ekaterina Alexandrova at the Miami Open.
Alexandrova pulled off a memorable result courtesy of an inspired performance as she out-battled the Pole to come through in straight sets, 6-4 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals in Florida.
Swiatek hit just eight winners with 16 unforced errors in a display that she will want to quickly forget about, but the evening belonged to Alexandrova, who is now into the last eight of a WTA 1000 tournament for the third time in her career.
"We played quite a few times before and sometimes it was three sets," Alexandrova said. "I think sometimes I was quite close to it but still far away.
"Winning against her, of course it feels great. I'm not sure if it's a surprise or not, but I just worked quite hard on the court, and it paid off."
Asked what particularly worked for her in the surprise victory, she added: "Just trying to go more inside the court, trying to hit everything in front of you so the opponent doesn't have as much time.
"I think when it goes in its very good but sometimes it's not working. But today, it worked.
"Second quarter-final here, second year in a row. Beating Iga after so many tries and she's No.1, it's the first time I beat a No.1. All three things are very special to me."
"Second quarter-final here, second year in a row. Beating Iga after so many tries and she's No.1, it's the first time I beat a No.1. All three things are very special to me."
Alexandrova has also defeated Donna Vekic and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in her run to the quarter-finals, and she will next face American Jessica Pegula, who overcame Emma Navarro in straight sets, 7-6(1) 6-3.
As for Swiatek, she was left to reflect on a hugely frustrating evening, but with her usual perspective.
"Disappointed, for sure, because I thought I was going to play better here in Miami," Swiatek said.
"She played an amazing match and for sure, she was the better player out there today.
"Her serve, I had a hard time reading it. I got a little bit tense when I couldn't return well."
I'm not sure Iga got used to the different conditions between Indian Wells and Miami this time.
Never really looked comfortable from the start of the tournament (if her performance with Noskova was any indication).
But I'm still proud and happy of how far she got. She didn't play Miami last year due to the rib issue, so every round here this year was a bonus.
But of course the media will see this loss as Iga losing to a big hitter once again. Never mind that she actually has a good H2H with Alexandrova (unlike with Ostapenko who's a big hitter herself).
Alexandrova is the type of player who like Ostapenko can beat anyone on a good day. She can just hit a real purple patch. This was one of those times. I'm not reading too much into this loss.
There's a reason literally 4 or 5 women have won the Sunshine Double (Iga being one of them). It's damn hard.
I'm sure Iga was tired after the past few weeks winning Indian Wells and Doha before that.
So I'm happy she'll get a bit of rest before playing in the Billie Jean King Cup in Switzerland (still on the hard court). And then switches over to her favourite surface after.
I do hope Iga starts managing and prioritizing her schedule better. Because playing another 60+ matches this season is not good for anyone.
Don't care how good or fit you are eventually your body will start to break down from strain.
Last year Iga was the only woman on tour to play over 70 matches.
The only person to equal that was Danil Medvedev on the men's tour; and even he took an extended break before the start of the following year.
She did mention in an interview that she plans to play a full season this year, but will definitely curtail things in 2025 (especially with all the Masters events extending an extra week).
With so many events in the calendar both tours certainly don't make things easy in that regard.
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