No.1 Iga Swiatek asks fans for more empathy and support for players

CINCINNATI, Ohio -- World No.1 Iga Swiatek asked for more understanding and kindness on the internet after she received angry messages from fans after her three-set win over Zheng Qinwen at the Western and Southern Open.

"The amount of hate and criticism that me and my team get after even losing a set is just ridiculous," Swiatek told reporters. "I want to kind of encourage people to be more thoughtful when they comment on the Internet.

"It's kind of sad for me to see that people I work with and myself, we are really judged. I would like to encourage people to be more thoughtful and to also focus on the positive side of what we are doing, because today, even though I didn't start the match well, I would love for people to see how I problem-solved and how I really got out of trouble."

By coming back to defeat Zheng 3-6, 6-1, 6-1, Swiatek tallied her tour-leading 52nd win of the season. She has now made 12 consecutive quarterfinals, the longest active streak by a large margin. In Cincinnati, she is bidding to win her fifth title of the season. Her haul of four titles -- Doha, Stuttgart, Roland Garros, and Warsaw -- is the most on tour.

So if Swiatek is getting critical messages based on that resume, something is clearly wrong.

"I also saw that after Dubai and Doha, when I won a tournament and then was in the final, I was pretty proud of my results but people really just saw the last match and that I lost in the final, and they shouldn't," Swiatek said.

"The thing is that I'm putting a lot of energy for it not to hit too deeply, but I just realized that sometimes people that -- I don't know if they are my fans or not, but obviously they want me to play better -- they cause me to really kind of waste a lot of energy to ignore them.

"It's just unnecessary because I know how much work we are putting and how much everybody sacrifices, me and my team. I wish people could also see that and not judge straightforwardly."

No.5 Ons Jabeur could relate to Swiatek's experience.

"I'm glad that Iga is talking about it," Jabeur said. "Honestly, you win, you lose, you get hate messages no matter what you do. We need more humanity, more nice people on this earth, but I don't think you can change the mentality of some bettors. They have nothing to do in their life, and they are just spending money on you, and probably, what, they lost a couple of bucks on Iga losing a set.

"I know Iga. She's strong, and those people are horrible and there are horrible people on this planet. What do we do? We move on. They get criticized in media conferences like this and we move on."

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Iga Swiatek makes first ever quarterfinal in Cincinnati

CINCINNATI, Ohio -- World No.1 Iga Swiatek came from a set down to defeat No.24 Zheng Qinwen 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 and advance to her first Western & Southern Open quarterfinal.

Into her 12 consecutive quarterfinal of the season, Swiatek will face reigning Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova on Friday.

With her win over Zheng, Swiatek is now 60-17 at WTA 1000 tournaments, a winning percentage of 77.9. Only Serena Williams owns a better winning percentage at the Hologic WTA Tour's top-level events, at 84.1 at the WTA-1000 level during her career.

Match notes: Bidding to earn her first win over Swiatek in their fourth meeting, Zheng played a dominant first set and proved better at handling the swirling conditions. A double fault from Swiatek handed Zheng an immediate double-break lead at 3-0, and the 21-year-old played a clean set to win the third set of her career off Swiatek.

Despite serving at just 29 percent in the first set, Zheng was the more comfortable player from the baseline. She hit 8 winners to 11 unforced errors, while Swiatek hit just five winners to 23 unforced errors.

Turning point: After a bathroom break between sets, Swiatek returned to the court with a renewed sense of intensity. She won the first six points of the second set and quickly opened a 5-0 lead by taking advantage of Zheng's second serves and minimizing her own mistakes. Swiatek went from hitting over 20 unforced errors in the first set to just five in the second.

Having locked into a successful game plan against Zheng, Swiatek eased through the final set to extend her head-to-head over Zheng to 4-0.

Stats of the match: After hitting 23 unforced errors in the first set, Swiatek hit just eight for the remainder of the match. Zheng struggled behind her own serve, hitting 36% of her first serves in and winning just 38% of her second-serve points.

Swiatek's thoughts: "I always feel like I just need to focus on myself and what I want to do on court," Swiatek said. "The tactics obviously is important, but it's the second most important thing because the best thing I can do is just kind of play my game and focus on adjusting my game so I can play the best in these conditions. That's what I'm gonna do."

Vondrousova battles the wind to get past Stephens

Vondrousova booked her spot in her first Cincinnati quarterfinal by defeating Sloane Stephens 7-5, 6-3 earlier in the day. The Wimbledon champion is slowly playing herself into form and is into her fifth quarterfinal of the season.

"When we were warming up it wasn't that windy, but when we came on the court I as like, 'Oh my god, what is happening?'" Vondrousova said. "You didn't know what was going to happen. I thought we were serving good in the wind, but it was very tough to play some rallies."

Vondrousova and Stephens had to battle the elements through their duel, but it was Vondrousova who was able to play a cleaner match to win. The Czech hit just 11 unforced errors to Stephens' 33.

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Iga Swiatek opens Cincinnati bid with another win over Collins

World No.1 Iga Swiatek defeated 34th-ranked Danielle Collins for the second time in less than a week with a 6-1, 6-0 victory in the second round of the Western & Southern Open on Wednesday.

Swiatek needed just 59 minutes to beat former World No.7 Collins for the fourth time in their five meetings. Swiatek books her spot in the Cincinnati Round of 16 for the second straight year.

"It was a really solid match and I felt I'm not doing a lot of mistakes," Swiatek said after her win. "I'm happy I didn't give anything for free. ... I could be proactive and not really overanalyze everything, just go for it. I'm happy that I did that."

Here are some more key figures around top-seeded Swiatek’s win over 2022 Australian Open finalist Collins:

2: Swiatek’s last two wins have come over Collins -- she also defeated the American in the Omnium Banque Nationale quarterfinals in Montreal last Friday. The pair of victories sandwich Swiatek’s semifinal loss to Jessica Pegula in Montreal and her first-round bye this week.

59: Swiatek has won 59 matches at WTA 1000 events in her career, and she holds a 77.6 percent win rate at WTA 1000 tournaments (59-17). Only Serena Williams (84.1%) has a better winning percentage than Swiatek at WTA 1000 events since that tournament level was created in 2009.

51: Swiatek is a perfect 51-0 at WTA 1000 events after she wins the first set. In Wednesday's first set, Collins matched Swiatek's seven winners, but the American had 15 unforced errors, tripling Swiatek's five.

7: Swiatek dropped serve once in the first set, but she successfully fended off the lone break point she faced during the second set. Swiatek finished the match with a 7-for-11 break point conversion rate, never allowing Collins to hold serve all day.

72: Swiatek is currently enjoying her 72nd week at World No.1, an unbroken stretch since she first ascended to that position on April 4, 2022. It is the 10th-longest streak at World No.1. Only two women have held the No.1 ranking for more consecutive weeks in their first stint at No.1: Stefanie Graf (186 weeks) and Martina Hingis (80 weeks).

3-0: In the Round of 16, Swiatek will face last season's WTA Newcomer of the Year Zheng Qinwen, after the Chinese No.1 ousted seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams. Swiatek is 3-0 against 24th-ranked Zheng.

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Iga Swiatek makes semi finals of National Bank Open on tournament debut

Iga Swiatek won her 50th match of the season, by a 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 count over qualifier Danielle Collins Friday night in Montreal.

The World No.1 moved into Saturday’s semifinal match against No.3 Jessica Pegula at the Omnium National Bank tournament. Earlier, Pegula was a dramatic 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 winner over doubles partner Coco Gauff.

Over the past two seasons, Swiatek has won 117 matches -- the most Hologic WTA Tour in a two-year span since Angelique Kerber in 2015-16. The last player to win 50-plus matches in back-to-back seasons was Karolina Pliskova (2018-19). Swiatek’s the first player since Serena Williams (2013-2014) to win 117 matches over two years.

By reaching this quarterfinal, Swiatek extended her reign as the No.1-ranked player to 72 weeks, 10th place on the all-time list and one more than Caroline Wozniacki.

“I really wanted to play powerful and I’m pretty happy that I managed to even increase the power in the third set,” Swiatek said in her on-court interview. “For sure, I was looking for that. Today I felt like I really needed to go even higher in terms of the intensity.

“I’m really proud of myself that I made it to the semis. I’m happy that I can play another match.”

Fun fact: No.1 players are undefeated at the Canadian Open in the years in which it has been played in Montréal since 2014 when Serena Williams lost in semifinals against Venus Williams.

Collins, a qualifier, was looking to win her sixth match in seven days. After two qualifying victories, Collins defeated Eugenie Bouchard in the first round, No.8 Maria Sakkari in the second and 2021 US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez in the Round of 16.

"I think from an energy perspective that probably had a big effect on the match," Collins said afterward. "I don't want to take away from Iga's performance. I think the way she was hitting her shots and her precision and what she was doing tactically was great."

Swiatek has now won three of four career matches against Collins.

Collins is an accomplished player who won two NCAA singles titles at the University of Virginia. She reached the semifinals of the Australian Open in 2019 and, three years later, the finals. Collins is an aggressive player who likes to play fast and loose.

On this occasion, Swiatek beat her at her own game.

Swatek collected the first break of the match on Collins’ opening service game. Two missed backhands gave Swiatek a 2-0 lead, which soon blossomed to 3-0 -- a love game punctuated by an ace.

Collins broke Swiatek in the eighth game, but Swiatek finished the first set off with an unreturnable serve.

The second set began as the first set did. Swiatek broke Collins’ first serve opportunity and took a 2-0 lead. But the American broke right back and, with Swiatek serving at 4-5, leveled the match. Collins converted her fourth set point when Swiatek’s backhand flew wide.

The first advantage in the third set went to Swiatek. Feasting on second serves, she worked it to break point and a Collins forehand soared wide for a 2-1 lead. Swiatek broke Collins again in the seventh game and served it out, converting her third match point, for the victory.

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Iga Swiatek wins French Open rematch to reach the quarters in Montreal

If Karolina Muchova had been playing anyone else, she might have won in straight sets. But this was World No.1 Iga Swiatek in a Thursday rematch of the French Open final two months ago -- in a match prolonged by two rain delays that required more than nine hours.

The outcome, however, was the same, with Swiatek winning 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 and advancing to the quarterfinals of the Omnium National Bank tournament in Montreal. As a result, Swiatek will remain No.1 when the new Hologic WTA Tour rankings come out on Monday; that’s 72 consecutive weeks and counting, moving her ahead of Caroline Wozniacki to sit at No.10 on the list of most weeks at No.1.

“You have to find energy even though we’ve been here since 9 a.m.,” Swiatek said in her on-court interview. “For sure, it was a pretty extraordinary day, and I don’t think I’ve had such a situation in my career so there is the opportunity to learn something new and see what I’m capable -- even though we played this match like three times.”

And while Swiatek’s 2022 was one of the best seasons in WTA history, 2023 is beginning to resemble that breakthrough stanza. This was the 22-year-old’s 49th match-win of the season. Only one woman in the past four years has exceeded that number -- Swiatek, last year, with 67. Previously, she had been level in that span with Anett Kontaveit and Ons Jabeur at 48.

Swiatek is the first player to win 40 or more WTA 1000 matches in a two-year span (24 in 2022 and 17 in 2023) since Simona Halep in 2018-2019 (23 and 18).

Next up is qualifier Danielle Collins, who continued her resurgence in Montreal by tallying her fifth win of the week after defeating Leylah Fernandez 6-2, 6-3.

Swiatek lost just one game to Collins earlier this year in Doha, but the American beat her 6-4, 6-1 in the Australian Open semifinals last year.

While Swiatek finally finished her match, not all players made it onto the court. Among them, No.2 seed Aryna Sabalenka, who will take on No.15 Liudmila Samsonova on Friday, and No.7 Petra Kvitova who faces No.12 Belinda Bencic.

Swiatek won six of the first set’s seven games, but that count did not reflect the exceptional level of play on both sides. Muchova was in most of the points, but broke down under the relentless pressure applied by Swiatek. Muchova earned two break points in the third game, but Swiatek served her way out. When Swiatek held a break point in the fourth game, Muchova double-faulted.

Similarly, Swiatek saved another break opportunity serving at 3-1 with another terrific serve -- and Muchova responded with two errant forehands. The sixth game was the best of the match and, after five deuces, Swiatek found a way to score her second break of serve.

For the set, Swiatek saved all four of the break points against her, while Muchova was 5-for-7.

The second set was a glaring reversal, with Muchova losing both break points against her -- and Swiatek, who was increasingly frustrated with a misfiring forehand, going 0-for-3. And so, like that Roland Garros final, Muchova leveled the match.

"For sure I hit ups and downs, and I felt that," Swiatek said. "I did some mistakes in the second set that are kind of -- you can't do that if you want to win matches at that stage.

"So for sure Karolina is the kind of player who is using these chances and situations, and she also put pressure in these moments, but I wanted to kind of reset and go into the third set with new energy and move a little bit better."

As the rain swept into Montreal, both players had ample time to cool off and prepare for the pivotal third set. When they came back, Swiatek promptly broke Muchova to take a 1-0 lead -- and then the rain returned.

Later (much later) Swiatek managed to hold and take a 2-0 lead. That margin stood up for the rest of the way. She finished by holding at love.

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Iga Swiatek makes a winning tournament debut in Montreal

World No.1 Iga Swiatek won her opening match for the 30th consecutive time. Her latest was a 7-6 (6), 6-2 victory against Karolina Pliskova on Wednesday at the Omnium Banque Nationale in Montreal.

If she prevails on Thursday against Karolina Muchova and advances to the quarterfinals at the Omnium National Bank event, Swiatek will retain the top ranking for a 72nd week. Muchova, the No.14 seed Karolina Muchova, was a 7-5, 6-4 winner over Sorana Cirstea. This is an appealing rematch of the three-set final earlier this year at Roland Garros. The head-to-head record is 1-all.

"Well, for sure it's nice to have some challenges and overcome them," Swiatek said in press after her match. "It wasn't an easy first round, but I'm happy that I stayed solid, and I could close it in the first set because after having -- I played two weeks ago in Warsaw, but still, I changed continents."

This match featured some heavy hitting from both players. Swiatek scrambled to force a tiebreak and escaped when Pliskova produced two errant forehands in the 62-minute session. The No.23-ranked Pliskova was a first-round, three-set winner over Zhu Lin.

Swiatek, making her tournament debut at this event, collected her Hologic WTA Tour-leading 48th victory, against only seven losses. This was the 22-year-old’s sixth consecutive win after winning her hometown tournament in Warsaw -- and the second win of the year over Pliskova, going back to a title run in Stuttgart.

The key statistic: Swiatek forced eight break-point opportunities and converted five.

Pliskova, who has weathered an uneven year, was the Montreal runner-up two years ago and reached the 2022 semifinals in Toronto. The 31-year-old from the Czech Republic has now lost eight of her past 10 matches.

For Swiatek, she now has to shift her focus to a rematch with Muchova.

"So I think any way we have to be ready for the next match and kind of expect that anything can happen because tennis can be pretty unpredictable," Swiatek said. "You know, one player can have a bad day. At the same time the other one can play the best tennis of their life."

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Inside Iga Swiatek's creative endurance training regimen

MONTREAL, Canada -- Iga Swiatek had a unique practice session ahead of her tournament debut at this week's Omnium Banque Nationale. Fresh off her victory on home soil at the BNP Paribas Warsaw Open, where she captured her tour-leading fourth tournament of the season, she discussed one of her more creative training techniques.

In the days leading up to the tournament, the World No.1 player was spotted on the practice courts with a piece of tape over her mouth. Devised by her fitness coach, Maciej Ryszczuk, the unorthodox exercise helps to restrict Swiatek's oxygen intake to improve endurance.

"It's harder to breathe when you're only breathing with your nose, and it's easier for my heart rate to go up," Swiatek told reporters during Media Day. "I'm not going to explain it to you perfectly because I'm not an expert. Sometimes I don't get the things they tell me to do, but I'm doing that for a long time now so it got pretty easy.

"But for sure you can see the difference in how everything you do on the court is getting more and more hard with that tape on your mouth. So I guess it's the way to kind of work on my endurance by not having me run so fast and do extreme things."

You can add "the tape method" to the unique list of Team Swiatek's preparation. She remains the only player to travel with a full-time sports psychologist. Her team uses medical instruments to measure her brain and heart activity for stress indicators. Then there are the puzzles and mini-games that test the 22-year-old's cognitive speed.

After a bye in the first round, Swiatek will face Karolina Pliskova in the second round in Montreal. A potential rematch of the French Open final against Karolina Muchova could take place in the Round of 16.

Last year, Swiatek came into the US Open Series with more insecurities about the state of her game. After going unbeaten over 37 matches, Swiatek took two losses, at Wimbledon and in Warsaw.

"I remember for sure I had some technical struggles that I focused more in terms of where I wanted to improve, but I was kind of stuck with a few shots that I didn't like," Swiatek said. "This year I don't have that. I feel more confident."

Swiatek has fewer points to defend over the next two weeks -- with losses in the Round of 16 in Canada and Cincinnati a year ago -- than in recent events. But her title defense at the US Open is just around the corner. A win there would give her four successful title defenses this year.

"I think playing Warsaw on hard court changed a lot the perspective because last year, switching from grass to clay and then to hard court was really tricky," Swiatek said. "This year, I feel like it's a really nice process without any extra obstacles. So it was pretty easy for me to just focus on work.

"I think it's great before the whole swing and before the US Open."

This will be Swiatek's first-ever appearance in Montreal, but Canada holds a special place in her heart. When the tournament was staged in Toronto in 2019, Swiatek was a qualifier who stunned Caroline Wozniacki in three sets before playing a memorable duel with Naomi Osaka. Swiatek recalled the matches fondly. It was when she found the belief she could hang with the best.

"When we played in Toronto, it was a kind of a breakthrough match for me because I realized that I can win those matches against the best players, the really experienced players. And I remember it was important for me because I lost the first set, 6-0 and then I came back. I was able to shake off all the stress and just focused on the game."

On the topic of Wozniacki, Swiatek says she's excited to see what the Dane can do in her comeback to competition.

"Even though she is not representing Poland, we all know that she speaks fluently, her parents are Polish," Swiatke said. "So she was one of these people that showed me that it's possible, besides, Aga Radwanska obviously.

"It's great that she wants to still see what she's capable of and to still challenge herself. I just have a huge respect for what she has done before. It's nice for me to see that as a player, even though she's satisfied with her career, she still wants to come back and challenge herself. I don't know if I would have the strength for that.

"So I'm just going to cheer for her. It's been pretty exciting."

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