World No. 2 Iga Swiatek of Poland moved one step closer to her first title of the year with a hard-fought 7-6(5), 6-3 victory over No. 22 seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine in the Round of 16 at the Miami Open.
Swiatek needed 2 hours and 5 minutes to battle past former World No. 3 Svitolina, completing the quarterfinal lineup at the year's fourth WTA 1000 event just after midnight on Tuesday morning.
Fast facts: Swiatek is still alive in her quest for a second Miami Open title -- she won this event in 2022 to complete the Sunshine Double (winning Indian Wells and Miami in the same year). The only other women to complete the Sunshine Double are Stefanie Graf (twice), Kim Clijsters and Victoria Azarenka.
Swiatek is indeed titleless so far in 2025 -- but despite that fact, she is still the tour leader in main-draw match-wins for the year. Her win over Svitolina was her 21st of the season, moving her ahead of Mirra Andreeva and Aryna Sabalenka's 20 victories apiece.
Swiatek is also now 13-1 against Ukrainian players at Hologic WTA Tour events. Her only WTA Tour-level loss to a Ukrainian player was against Svitolina, in the 2023 Wimbledon quarterfinals.
Match moments: Swiatek was up a break on three separate occasions in the first set, but each of those times, Svitolina broke back in the very next game, and the pair naturally settled the opening frame in a tiebreak.
Svitolina battled back from 3-0 down in the breaker, but Swiatek used deep, heavy forehands on the humid night to keep herself from falling behind. Swiatek earned her first set point at 6-5 with a crosscourt backhand winner, and the Pole closed out the one-set lead with one last forehand winner after 62 grueling minutes.
In the second set, Swiatek had three break points to take a dominant 5-1 lead, but Svitolina swatted those away and was eventually able to pull back on serve at 4-3. However, Swiatek broke again in a challenging 5-3 game, and she powered her way to victory from there. Swiatek finished the match with 34 winners to Svitolina's 22.
Wild card awaits: Swiatek will now face an unexpected opponent in the quarterfinals: 19-year-old wild card Alexandra Eala of the Philippines.
Eala moved into the first Hologic WTA Tour quarterfinal of her career when her fourth-round opponent, No. 10 seed Paula Badosa, withdrew in advance of their match due to a lower back injury.
Even though she received a walkover today, World No. 140 Eala is not to be taken lightly. Eala had been 0-4 against Top 40 players coming into Miami, but had a breakthrough win over No. 25 Jelena Ostapenko in the second round and an even bigger win over No. 5 Madison Keys in the third round.
With those wins, Eala became the first Filipina woman in the Open Era to defeat Grand Slam singles champions at any WTA Tour event -- and now she will play another in five-time major champion Swiatek.
Talk about a weird match for about 15 games neither player could hold serve on the far side of the court. Thus lot's of breaks of serve.
The quality of the match wasn't bad (lot's of great lengthy rallies). It just had a weird vibe, which I'm going to chuck up to being a night match (the first for both players) and the incredibly humid conditions.
Iga had quite a few errors on her forehand tonight, but stayed calm and didn't get frustrated. Played a great tiebreak where she was the braver of the 2 on set point.
All in all this kind of match could be good for Iga might not be playing her best and handing out bagels and breadsticks ala Indian Wells but that could actually be a good thing.
She's having to battle and think her way out of situations. That'll will certainly give you more confidence in the long run than just running away with a match with zero challenge.
Felt like that was part of the problem in Indian Wells all was good when Iga was leading but as soon as things got tough she panicked and had no plan B. So I'm taking both of Iga's last matches as huge positive.
Next up is someone I haven't seen much of fairly new to the sport a student from Rafa's Academy could be interesting. Should Iga get through it'd be another challenging semi with either Pegula or Raducanu (who's playing at quite a high level for the first time in Miami).
But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now we enjoy another quarter final for Iga at WTA 1000 level.
Well done, see you Wednesday Iga.
Jazda!
OptaAce Stats:37 - Since the format’s introduction in 2009, Iga Swiatek (37, level with Petra Kvitova) now only trails Victoria Azarenka (41) for WTA-1000 match wins over former WTA-1000 champions. Eclipse.
78.7 - Since the format's introduction in 2009, Iga Swiatek (78.7%, 37-10) holds the best win rate of any player at WTA-1000 events against former WTA-1000 champions – minimum five matches. Benchmark.
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