No.1 seed Iga Swiatek maintained her perfect record against Marta Kostyuk to reach the Cincinnati Open quarterfinals, advancing 6-2, 6-2 against the No.15 seed in 70 minutes.
Swiatek will next face Mirra Andreeva for the first time after the 17-year-old took out No.5 seed Jasmine Paolini 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 in exactly 2 hours to reach her third career quarterfinal at WTA 1000 level or above. Andreeva has played Paolini in each of those runs: she defeated the Italian to make the Madrid quarterfinals, but lost to her in the Roland Garros semifinals. Additionally, Andreeva (with Diana Shnaider) also fell to Paolini (with Sara Errani) in the Paris Olympic Games doubles final.
In Cincinnati, the pendulum swung back towards Andreeva, who notched her second career Top 5 win after gradually taking control of the match with precise backhands and greater intensity in the home stretch.
Here are the key numbers behind Swiatek's swift win:
3: Swiatek has now defeated Kostyuk in straight sets in all three of their pro meetings. The Ukrainian got one more game on the board than in the Indian Wells semifinals in March, which Swiatek took 6-2, 6-1. Their closest match so far was in the 2021 Roland Garros fourth round, won by Swiatek 6-3, 6-4. The Pole also won their one junior encounter 6-3, 6-3 in the 2017 Traralgon Grade 1 final.
9: Swiatek advances to her ninth quarterfinal of 2024 so far, and her second in Cincinnati after reaching the semifinals last year. Her season record now stands at 54-6.
27: The story of the match lay in Kostyuk racking up 27 unforced errors in 16 games. There were brief signs at the start of the match that the World No.21 would be able to push Swiatek as she came up with a pair of excellent counter-punching winners in the first two games. But Kostyuk spent the remainder of the match eschewing point construction and over-pressing wildly. She compensated for her error count with only 12 winners.
71: Kostyuk's determination to end points quickly gave Swiatek little opportunity to demonstrate any form either way, and she tallied four winners to eight unforced errors overall. However, the World No.1 was superb in controlling what was on her racquet: she landed 71% of her first serves, and won 71% of the points behind it.
5: Swiatek's first-round win over Varvara Gracheva contained an unexpected mid-match plot twist as the Frenchwoman fought back from 6-0, 5-2 down -- saving five match points along the way -- to force a deciding set. There was to be no repeat of that today. Swiatek reeled off the last five points of the match, sealing victory with a break to love on her first match point.
Much better performance from Iga. Though to be fair she didn't have to do much Kostyuk made it pretty easy at times with a lot of errors.
Next up a first time meeting with 17 year old Meera Andreva. One of the few times Iga will be playing someone younger than her.
Could be very interesting.
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