After capturing the National Bank Open crown on Thursday, the question was how Iga Swiatek
might respond to a quick turnaround for her upcoming title defense at the Cincinnati Open.
She answered it with aplomb on Sunday. The Pole picked up her seventh straight match win — and seventh in a row at the tournament — by beating Colombia's Emiliana Arango
6-3, 6-0 at the Lindner Family Tennis Center.
The 2025 Cincinnati champion won the last seven games after a slow start, falling behind a break at 2-1. She admitted that she needed time to adjust to the court speed in Cincinnati, which is “much different” from Toronto. But once she found her range, it was smooth sailing.
"At the beginning, I felt I needed to get used to the court and the conditions, and get my rhythm," Swiatek said to press after the 1 hour and 12-minute win. "There were some shots that I mishit or played a little bit too long because the ball is flying differently than in Toronto.
"Later on, I played much more efficient, and game-by-game, I knew what to address to just make less mistakes and be more solid. By the end of the match, I felt really good."
Seven proved a good number for Swiatek in the match -- Arango is also now 0-7 against Top 10 players -- but it wasn't the only one. Other notable numbers from the match included:
2: Arango could do little to stem the Swiatek tide once the No. 7 seed got going. She only won two points on serve in the second set.
4: After hitting 17 unforced errors in the first set, Swiatek only hit four in the second set.
"The ball is bouncing a bit higher in the air and it acts a but different," Swiatek said on the difference between Toronto and Cincinnati's courts. "There was some wind today that was different than Toronto. It was more humid so physically, you feel much different.
"The ball kind of stays in the air longer, which makes it tricky sometimes if you're not used to it."
5: She broke Arango's serve five times in the match.
18: Swiatek finished the match with 18 winners -- 15 more than Arango.
30: The win marked Swiatek's 30th main-draw match won on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz this season.
41: Swiatek has now won 41 6-0 sets at WTA 1000 level in her career. Only Martina Hingis (52) and Serena Williams (50) have more since 1990.
99: Swiatek now has 99 career hard-court wins at WTA 1000 tournaments. Should she beat Maria Sakkari in the third round, she would become the fifth active player to claim 100-plus wins in hard-court WTA 1000 events along with Aryna Sabalenka, Karolina Pliskova, Elina Svitolina and Serena Williams.
Not much to say after this one.
Iga did a superb job adjusting to the different court conditions considering she barely had 2 days to train with the quick turnaround from Canada.
And still no rest with Sakkari tomorrow.
After not seeing Iga for weeks at a time it's nice to see her almost on the daily at the moment.
The only thing I'm not looking forward to tomorrow is Iga playing first up at 11am.
The visibility of the ball in this tournament is absolutely atrocious (forgot how much I hated it).
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