Iga Swiatek ends the year with another win for Poland at United Cup

World No.1 Iga Swiatek showed no signs of rust in her first match of the 2023 season, defeating Yulia Putintseva 6-1, 6-3 at the United Cup. The victory Saturday gave No.2 seed Poland a 1-0 lead over Kazakhstan, but Timofey Skatov leveled the tie hours later with a 7-6(7), 6-2 win over Daniel Michalski.

With Polish great Agnieszka Radwanska looking on from the captain's box, Swiatek needed just three games before finding the rhythm and range that made her the runaway 2022 Hologic WTA Tour Player of the Year. Putintseva earned an early breakpoint chance in Swiatek's first game, but she coolly erased it with pinpoint accuracy.

"I'm pretty happy with my performance," Swiatek said. "First matches of the season are always rusty. I was happy that in the important moments I was really composed."

Under pressure again while serving at 1-1, 0-30, Swiatek found another gear to reel off 12 consecutive points to build a 4-1 lead. With six unforced errors in the first three games, Swiatek would make just one for the rest of the set, pocketing the set after 27 minutes.

Swiatek underlined her reputation as the tour's preeminent front-runner in the second set. After keeping Putintseva at bay in the early games, Swiatek broke to 3-2 and held her lead to win after 64 minutes. She finished the match with 22 groundstroke winners -- 17 on the forehand alone -- to just five for Putintseva.

The victory extended Swiatek's head-to-head record against Putintseva to 2-0.

Skatov leveled the tie with a grueling win against Michalski. The first set was critical, with long, grinding rallies that led to the match lasting 2 hours and 11 minutes.

“It was a really tough match, but actually my captain’s not happy because he said I played too long,” Skatov said in reference to Kazakhstan playing captain Alexander Bublik, who laughed in the team zone. “Today’s new year and we have to celebrate a bit! But OK, I tried to play as fast as possible.”

World No.142 Skatov saved all five break points he faced against Michalski to earn his first win at the United Cup. The 21-year-old had lost his first No.2 men’s singles match of the week in three sets against Switzerland’s Marc-Andrea Huesler.

The tie will continue Sunday evening when Bublik faces Polish star Hubert Hurkacz in the No.1 men’s singles match. Hurkacz leads the pair’s ATP Head2Head series 3-1.

Poland’s Magda Linette will then play crowd favorite Zhibek Kulambayeva in the No.2 women’s singles match before a possible decider in the mixed doubles inside Pat Rafter Arena.

The United Cup is a new mixed-teams event featuring 18 countries across Brisbane, Perth and Sydney. Played over two days, ties will be comprised of two ATP and two WTA singles matches and one mixed-doubles match.

wtatennis.com

Iga Swiatek and Team Poland begin United Cup on New Year's Eve

 

Little reason to believe Iga Swiatek will slow down in 2023

Leave it up to Iga Swiatek to change the trajectory.

In this case, we’re not talking about her on-court results. During the United Cup press conference Wednesday in Brisbane, Australia, Swiatek (in good fun) wanted to move on from the team camaraderie line of questioning.

She was ready to change it up, which of course, led to questions on her 2022 season, where she finished as the top-ranked player by a landslide. Swiatek, who finished with more than twice as many rankings points as No.2 Ons Jabeur, was quick to admit her season went far better than she could have imagined -- but was also ready to move on.

“I'm going to try to kind of cut off everything that happened last year and just focus on the future, because I feel like I can take a lot of experience from these tournaments last year,” she said, “but I don't want to really like hold on to that too much, because I want to go forward and kind of focus on my next goals.

“For sure all these press conferences are going to kind of remind me of everything, but my goal is to just focus on the future and try to improve as a tennis player.”

Nonetheless, Swiatek’s 2021 numbers were dominant and worth re-examining. There was a 37-match win streak, a 67-9 (.881) record, two major championships and eight titles overall. Every week, it seemed, she joined some of the game’s greatest players in categories that underlined her excellence.

Her 36 weeks in her first run at No.1 is the fourth longest such streak, after Stefanie Graf, Martina Hingis and Serena Williams.

In the past 40 years, only Martina Navratilova and Graf (each with 17) won more consecutive matches against players in the Top 10 than Swiatek’s 15.

Swiatek is the first woman to win two majors in a single season -- Roland Garros and the US Open -- since Angelique Kerber took the Australian Open and US Open in 2016.

“I mean, her season is right up there with the best in this century,” said Tennis Channel’s Pam Shriver. “Iga’s played everybody they’ve put in front of her.”

Swiatek won 47 hard-courts matches in 2022. In the 2000s, only Kim Clijsters (59 in 2003 and 51 in 2005), Agnieszka Radwanska (52 in 2013), Jelena Jankovic (50 in 2008) and Lindsay Davenport (49 in 2001) had more in a single year. Swiatek finished the 2022 season with 11,085 ranking points -- more than double No.2 Ons Jabeur’s total. That’s the most since Serena Williams in 2013.

And then there’s the not-so-minor category of prize money. Swiatek, still only 21 years old, finished the year with a WTA Tour-leading $9.88 million in prize money. On the ATP, only late surges by Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz allowed them to catch her -- barely. Alcaraz ($10.1 million) received a generous distribution from the ATP bonus pool and Djokovic (9.9 million) won all of his matches at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin -- taking home $2.2 million for winning the final alone.

Chris Evert, the 18-time major champion, was impressed with Swiatek’s winnings, the fifth-highest total in history.

“Love it,” she said. “I think it says a lot about the power of women’s tennis. It says a lot about the excellence of Iga that she was able to maintain that top level of tennis over the period of a year.”

Two members of the Original 9, who famously signed symbolic $1 contracts in 1970 in advance of the inaugural Virginia Slims of Houston tournament, said they were thrilled.

“I think it is fantastic that Iga finished the year making nearly $10 million,” Nancy Richey wrote in an email. “As an Original 9 besides just wanting to have a place to play, we also were hoping to increase the prize money we were playing for so the women could make a good living out of playing the sport we loved.

“I think that has happened and it is very gratifying to see how the women’s game has truly “Come A Long Way Baby!”

Wrote Julie Heldman, another Original 9 member, “Iga Swiatek is a great tennis player, who has earned nearly $10 million this year, which was only possible due to the dedication of the women tennis pros who fought hard for the success of the early women’s pro tour.”

For the record, Serena and Venus Williams head the all-time WTA earnings list, with nearly $95 million and $42 million, respectively. Naomi Osaka and Serena are 1-2 in Forbes magazine’s ranking of 2022’s highest-paid female athletes, which includes endorsements, at $58 million and $45 million.

Now it’s a clean slate, and Swiatek will approach the new season with a different feel. Not only is the Ashleigh Barty, who was the World No.1 retired, but Swiatek understands her results will be vetted much more closely from the outset of the season.

”[Ash] really set the bar pretty high, so I need to like show it to people but also show it to myself that I'm in the right place,” Swiatek said.

Swiatek and Team Poland kick off their United Cup competition on Dec. 31 in Brisbane, when the team takes on Kazakhstan.

wtatennis.com

Roger Federer on The Daily Show talks life after tennis

 

Such a fantastic interview. I'm gonna be laughing about the Wimbledon security guard lady for days. :D