ROME -- Playing against the World No.1 on her favorite surface, you can’t afford to toss out any freebies.
On a glorious sunny Thursday at Foro Italico, Coco Gauff played Iga Swiatek to a 4-all dead heat through the first 50 minutes, matching skittering defense and booming forehands. And then, for a fleeting moment, Gauff took her eye off the ball.Back-to-back double faults left her swinging her racket in frustration and gifted Swiatek with a considerable opening. Swiatek hit the line twice in four points and emerged with the first set. The second invariably followed, and Swiatek was a 6-4, 6-3 winner over the No.3-ranked player in the world.
This brings Swiatek to a tantalizing juncture in history.
Only Serena Williams (2013) managed to win consecutive titles in Madrid, Rome and Paris. Swiatek could lock down the first two legs in Saturday’s Internazionali BNL d’Italia final against the winner of the evening match between No.2 Aryna Sabalenka and No.13 Danielle Collins. With a win, the 22-year-old from Poland would find herself in the enviable position of being the overwhelming favorite at Roland Garros.
Swiatek, of course, has already won the Italian Open twice and the French Open on three occasions. Winning Madrid for the first time a few weeks ago was a personal breakthrough and you can see the confidence – as embodied in her swashbuckling game --flowing freely.
Swiatek has now won 11 consecutive matches. That’s also how many times she’s played Gauff in their WTA Tour careers and the victory count stands at 10; she’s 4-0 against the American on red clay.
Gauff, who turned 20 in March, was trying to become only the second player in a decade to reach the women’s singles final here in Rome before turning 21. The first? Iga Swiatek.
Gauff is only ranked two spots below Swiatek, but the gap remains considerable. It’s reminiscent of a comment Dominic Theim made to reporters after defeating Alexander Zverev at Roland Garros in 2016. Asked afterwards what the difference was, Thiem smiled and said, “About three years.”
“I thought that I played well majority of the match,” Gauff told reporters later. “It came down to certain moments. Yeah, she came up clutch. She had a lot of balls on the line, close to the line, which is what she does.”
Fact is, Gauff passed Caroline Wozniacki for the most wins in WTA 1000s before the age of 21 when she beat Zheng Qinwen in the quarterfinals. She’s the reigning US Open champion, but is still working to close the gap on Swiatek in this setting. Few players outside of Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina can consistently put themselves in the Pole's orbit.
Gauff has been focusing on her service game in practice, but it’s been wanting, particularly in the big moments. Double faults are often the result of nerves under stress and she leaves the tournament with a total of 45 in five matches.
“The double-faults, they did come just in that one game,” Gauff told reporters. “Overall, if I'm going 120 [miles per hour] on the serves, I have to expect that.
“But overall I would say from just this match, I feel more negative emotions right now. Looking at the whole tournament from where I started to now, I definitely feel like it’s major improvement."
Said Swiatek, “For sure these are nice words. Hard for me to say. She’s the one who’s playing this kind of tennis and feeling what she can do with her racket. It’s a compliment from her.”
Swiatek wound up breaking Gauff four times, while giving up only one break herself. When it happened in the fifth game of the second set, the match was effectively over. It ran 1 hour and 48 minutes but somehow felt quicker.
After the last backhand -- following a sharp forehand service return -- Gauff walked slowly to the net with a resigned look on her face. Swiatek shook hands, acknowledged the chair umpire and happily danced on Stadio Centrale.
When Swiatek paints the lines like she did at the end, are there times when she feels unbeatable?
“No,” Swiatek said. “If I would feel that way, I wouldn’t play so well because I always try to remind myself that I shouldn’t expect anything, take anything for granted. Usually when I feel like this one is going to be a winner, I’m going to win this game, it doesn’t happen, so ... I have to think a little bit differently to be more efficient.”
wtatennis.com
To think we had to wait a whole year for these 2 to meet and now we're getting a 2nd meeting between 2 of the world's best in almost as many weeks.
Everyone was hoping for it, but in sport nothing is ever a guarantee so the fact they both made it is kind of amazing.
Especially considering the effort they both showed in Madrid, to than turn around and go to a different country with different conditions, weather and court wise and make it all the way to the end is extraordinary.
I'm not expecting this one to be as high quality maybe not even as dramatic (because honestly I'm not sure anything will ever match it) and again it's sport so it's rare things happen the same way in such a short span of time.
And they both have to be tired if not physically than certainly mentally.
But no matter the result I fully expect it'll be competitive, that we're pretty much guaranteed, and I CANNOT wait.
I had low expectations going into this week knowing how much effort Iga put in in Madrid. The fact she has made back to back finals is just a bonus. And I'm full of awe and national pride.
As always I will be cheering for Iga with all my heart, I hope she plays free and like she has nothing to lose and just goes for it really.
She's already given her fans so much joy and moments to remember since February. Win or lose it'll be the cherry on the cake.
I know Sabalenka will be really wanting this win and will have definitely learned from Madrid so I expect her to play a more measured and less chaotic match in clutch moments in particular.
It'll be interesting to see what tactics Iga employs to counteract it all on the slower clay of Rome vs the altitude of Madrid.
Seriously is it Saturday yet?.
Jazda!.
3 - Since the WTA rankings were first published in 1975, Iga Swiatek has become only the third player to reach multiple Italian Open finals as the WTA's #1, along with Serena Williams (three) and Monica Seles (two). Benchmark.
40 - Since the format’s introduction in 2009, Iga Swiatek (40%, 12/30) holds the highest percentage of finals reached from WTA-1000 main draws entered. Serena Williams (36.7%, 18/49) is the next best in the format's history. Inevitable.
Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka playing each other in the Madrid AND Rome finals this year is the first time since *2000* that the WTA #1 and #2 will meet TWICE in a TWO-WEEK SPAN. The last time was Hingis and Davenport in the 2000 Indian Wells & Miami finals
No comments:
Post a Comment