Iga Swiatek makes a winning return on clay in Stuttgart

Iga Swiatek had a victorious clay-court debut for the 2024 season on Thursday, when she defeated Elise Mertens 6-3, 6-4 in the second round of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix.

World No.1 Swiatek, playing her first match on the dirt since she won last year's Roland Garros title, needed 1 hour and 33 minutes to hold off 30th-ranked Mertens and claim a spot in the Stuttgart quarterfinals for the third straight year.

The winner speaks: "I'm really happy with the way I played," Swiatek told the press. "First match on clay, so it's always tricky. Elise was really good. Sometimes at defense I had to be patient and really work for the points. So I'm happy with the way I handled it.

"That's one of the things you have to switch from hard court, you have to be ready for longer rallies and for players to be able to get back more. And also, I can use that. I can also get back more balls. So it works both ways, but you have to switch that mindset to be more patient."

Fast facts: Two-time defending champion Swiatek remains undefeated at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, improving to 9-0 at the event with her latest win over Mertens of Belgium. Poland's Swiatek has defeated World No.2 Aryna Sabalenka in each of the last two Stuttgart finals.

Mertens has accrued many victories in her career, including seven wins over Top 5 opposition, but this was surprisingly her first meeting with Swiatek in singles. Swiatek held sway in their first showdown, converting four of her six break points.

Major champion clash awaits: Swiatek will next face 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu in the quarterfinals. Raducanu defeated Linda Noskova 6-0, 7-5 to clinch her spot in the elite eight.

The showdown between the Grand Slam champions will be a rematch of their 2022 Stuttgart quarterfinal, which Swiatek won 6-4, 6-4. Four-time major champion Swiatek also defeated Raducanu 6-3, 6-1 at Indian Wells last year to take a 2-0 lead in their head-to-head.

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Feels like forever since Iga was back on the red stuff (not even the real stuff really) just indoor. But I've missed it. 

She's like a different player on it. Just an absolute joy to watch. Bit like the artistry Roger showed on grass over the years. 

So happy she'll be playing Raducanu instead of Noskova in the quarters was getting really tired of seeing her name on Iga's side of the draw this year. 

Really looking forward to tomorrow. 

Jazda!

Iga Swiatek celebrates 99th week as World #1

STUTTGART, Germany -- Iga Swiatek is back in her happy place at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. The World No.1 is the two-time defending champion at the Porsche-Arena and was the picture of peace and excitement after her first practice of the season on clay.

"I'm happy to be back on this surface," Swiatek told reporters at Media Day in Stuttgart. "Obviously I really like it and I missed it. It's nice to be back.

"Also I love this tournament. I have really great memories. Hopefully I'm going to create some more memories this year."

Swiatek has more than just memories from this tournament, where she is a perfect 8-0. She also has the two Porsches she's won. And unlike regular tournament trophies, these aren't gathering much dust at home.

"When I'm practicing a lot and I'm tired, I like to have peace in my car," Swiatek said. "I really like how comfortable the Panamera is. Really, I mean, sometimes I'm putting loud music, but overall it's pretty quiet, pretty smooth. Still you can feel the sporty vibe.

"Sometimes I like to drive a little bit faster, but not too crazy. Obviously I have so much adrenaline on the court that sometimes I don't need any more off the court. I also have 911 at home. When I want to mix it up, I jump into the 911."

At that point in her answer, Swiatek laughed. Even she had to acknowledge how ridiculous this embarrassment of riches sounded.

"Sorry, it sounds weird," Swiatek said, "but I'm pretty proud of how I played during these past years here in Stuttgart. It's amazing we can have such a prize for winning. Pretty crazy."

On Monday, the three-time Roland Garros champion looked at ease as she practiced in the shadow of the lavender Porsche Taycan 4S Sport Turismo that awaits this year's tournament champion. Swiatek arrived in Stuttgart on Saturday after delivering Poland into the Billie Jean King Cup Finals. Playing on indoor hard courts in Switzerland, Swiatek went 2-0 over the weekend to close out her spring hard-court season.

"I felt today that I can do the transition pretty quickly," Swiatek said. "I'm not expecting that I'm going to feel comfortable from my first match because you always need some matches to just gain confidence on any surface, even if you feel comfortable on it."

After a first-round bye, Swiatek will begin her quest for a three-peat against Belgium's Elise Mertens. She is bidding to become the first player to sweep the event in three consecutive years since Maria Sharapova did so a decade ago. She is an outstanding 63-9 on clay in her career, a winning percentage of 87.5 percent. The next best percentage among active players? Simona Halep at 72.9 percent.

Swiatek is checking off statistical milestones on a near-weekly basis, and this week is no exception. As the clay season begins, Swiatek is spending her 99th week at World No.1, passing Lindsay Davenport to sit at No.9 on the all-time list. She will celebrate her centennial week during the Mutua Madrid Open.

"Honestly, yeah, this is one of these stats actually [that make me sit up and take notice]," Swiatek said. "I think overall, that I'm in the Top 10 of all time in terms of weeks at No. 1, I wouldn't expect that ever a couple of years back."

Cumulative Weeks at World No.1:

1. Stefanie Graf: 377
2. Martina Navratilova: 332
3. Serena Williams: 319
4. Chris Evert: 260
5. Martina Hingis: 209
6. Monica Seles: 178
7. Ashleigh Barty: 121
8. Justine Henin: 117
9. Iga Swiatek: 99 (as of April 15)
10. Lindsay Davenport: 98

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Iga Swiatek announces cosmetic partnership with Lancome

 

For Iga Swiatek, nothing says confidence and glamor like a striking red lip. The world No. 1 is the newest brand ambassador for Lancôme cosmetics in a historic first for both a Polish woman and a female athlete.

Swiatek announced the landmark partnership in social media posts on Monday ahead of the start of her two-time title defense at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart. As part of the announcement, where she revealed that she first was gifted Idôle perfume by Lancôme as a gift in her teens, the 22-year-old participated in a bold photoshoot wearing Lancôme products, clad in a black jumpsuit with sheer cutouts in front of a white background.

"I liked it a lot and since then I have had some good feelings about the brand," she wrote on Instagram. "I haven’t even thought that I will be announcing my cooperation with a beauty brand like this a couple of years later ... and that I will become the first Polish ambassador of the brand and first athlete among ambassadors like Zendaya or Julia Roberts. This is huge for me."

Swiatek also wrote that she was excited to be able to "celebrate [her] feminity" as a result of the collaboration.

"... Because as a tennis player, wearing mainly sports clothes, I don’t have a lot of opportunities to do so," she added.

Swiatek will also collaborate with the brand on an initiative in Poland that will support women in the job market, and an official social media post by the company hailed Swiatek by saying: "She perfectly mirrors Lancôme’s expertise in the beauty world, and she is the voice of the young generation and an inspiration for all."

After being named the world's highest-earning female athlete for 2023 by *Forbes* in December, the Pole's sponsorship portfolio continues to grow. Swiatek made an estimated $23.9 million last year, and currently has other brand deals with companies like Visa, Porsche, On apparel, Rolex, LEGO, and Poland's biggest insurance company PZU.

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Loving how diverse her partnerships are becoming. 

Iga Swiatek helps Poland to BJK Cup Finals

 

Poland, Great Britain, the United States, Romania, Germany, Japan, Australia and Slovakia clinched spots in the Billie Jean King Cup Finals on Saturday, each moving one step closer to the prestigious women's tennis team title.

This weekend's eight Billie Jean King Cup Qualifiers ties were all settled on Saturday, with the winners advancing to November's Finals in Seville, Spain. Here is a running breakdown of the final day of the Qualifiers:

Poland def. Switzerland 4-0

Iga Swiatek had to contend with a spirited effort by Swiss 18-year-old Celine Naef, but the World No.1 from Poland prevailed 6-4, 6-3 to send her nation back to the Billie Jean King Cup Finals.

Despite falling behind an early break, heavy hitting by Swiatek allowed her to eventually take charge. At one point, Swiatek reeled off six straight games to lead 6-4, 4-0, putting her squad on the brink of sweeping 2022 champions Switzerland.

Rising teen Naef, ranked World No.148, showed off big shots and impeccable defense to get back on serve at 4-3 in the second set and put pressure on the Pole. In the end, though, Swiatek righted the ship to pick off the final two games and wrap up the 1-hour and 21-minute win.

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Iga Swiatek falls short of another Sunshine Double

It was a day to remember for Ekaterina Alexandrova at the Miami Open on Monday as she defeated world No. 1 Iga Swiatek in a huge result in Florida. Swiatek had been in hot pursuit of securing the Sunshine Double after her impressive triumph at Indian Wells, but she was not able to match Alexandrova's level in the evening clash as she surprisingly crashed out of the tournament.

Iga Swiatek saw her pursuit of a second career Sunshine Double come to an abrupt end after she suffered an upset defeat to Ekaterina Alexandrova at the Miami Open.

Alexandrova pulled off a memorable result courtesy of an inspired performance as she out-battled the Pole to come through in straight sets, 6-4 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals in Florida.

Swiatek hit just eight winners with 16 unforced errors in a display that she will want to quickly forget about, but the evening belonged to Alexandrova, who is now into the last eight of a WTA 1000 tournament for the third time in her career.


"We played quite a few times before and sometimes it was three sets," Alexandrova said. "I think sometimes I was quite close to it but still far away.

"Winning against her, of course it feels great. I'm not sure if it's a surprise or not, but I just worked quite hard on the court, and it paid off."

Asked what particularly worked for her in the surprise victory, she added: "Just trying to go more inside the court, trying to hit everything in front of you so the opponent doesn't have as much time.

"I think when it goes in its very good but sometimes it's not working. But today, it worked.
"Second quarter-final here, second year in a row. Beating Iga after so many tries and she's No.1, it's the first time I beat a No.1. All three things are very special to me."

Alexandrova has also defeated Donna Vekic and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in her run to the quarter-finals, and she will next face American Jessica Pegula, who overcame Emma Navarro in straight sets, 7-6(1) 6-3.


As for Swiatek, she was left to reflect on a hugely frustrating evening, but with her usual perspective.
"Disappointed, for sure, because I thought I was going to play better here in Miami," Swiatek said.


"She played an amazing match and for sure, she was the better player out there today.
"Her serve, I had a hard time reading it. I got a little bit tense when I couldn't return well."

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I'm not sure Iga got used to the different conditions between Indian Wells and Miami this time. 

Never really looked comfortable from the start of the tournament (if her performance with Noskova was any indication). 

But I'm still proud and happy of how far she got. She didn't play Miami last year due to the rib issue, so every round here this year was a bonus. 

But of course the media will see this loss as Iga losing to a big hitter once again. Never mind that she actually has a good H2H with Alexandrova (unlike with Ostapenko who's a big hitter herself).

Alexandrova is the type of player who like Ostapenko can beat anyone on a good day. She can just hit a real purple patch. This was one of those times. I'm not reading too much into this loss. 

There's a reason literally 4 or 5 women have won the Sunshine Double (Iga being one of them). It's damn hard.

I'm sure Iga was tired after the past few weeks winning Indian Wells and Doha before that. 

So I'm happy she'll get a bit of rest before playing in the Billie Jean King Cup in Switzerland (still on the hard court). And then switches over to her favourite surface after. 

I do hope Iga starts managing and prioritizing her schedule better. Because playing another 60+ matches this season is not good for anyone. 

Don't care how good or fit you are eventually your body will start to break down from strain. 

Last year Iga was the only woman on tour to play over 70 matches. 

The only person to equal that was Danil Medvedev on the men's tour; and even he took an extended break before the start of the following year.   

She did mention in an interview that she plans to play a full season this year, but will definitely curtail things in 2025 (especially with all the Masters events extending an extra week).

With so many events in the calendar both tours certainly don't make things easy in that regard. 

Iga Swiatek survives 3rd meeting of the season with Noskova at Miami Open

MIAMI -- World No.1 Iga Swiatek's bid to sweep the Sunshine Double continues at the Miami Open after the Polish star held on to defeat No.31 Linda Noskova 6-7(7), 6-4, 6-4 in the third round on Sunday night. The win is Swiatek's first comeback win from a set down this season.

In the third meeting between the two this season, Swiatek came from a set down to improve her head-to-head to 3-1 over the 19-year-old Czech. Earlier this season, Noskova stunned Swiatek in the third round of the Australian Open en route to her first major quarterfinal.

The 2-hour and 33-minute victory improved Swiatek's tour-leading record to 22-2 this season. Noskova dropped to 12-6.

"As you can see, it's not like we can take everything for granted," Swiatek said. "You can be in trouble at the early stages of the tournament. No sense to talk about Sunshine Double.

"For sure I'm taking just experience from this match and I know what I have to focus on little bit more because it wasn't like I felt 100 percent comfortable all the time. I mean, I thought it's going to be easier to get used to the new conditions and new balls, but it's been tricky today."

Coming off her victory at the BNP Paribas Open last week, Swiatek is bidding to become the second woman to sweep the Sunshine Double twice. Stefanie Graf is the only woman to complete the feat so far, winning Indian Wells and Miami in 1994 and 1996. Swiatek swept the back-to-back WTA 1000s during her historic 37-match win streak in 2022.

Noskova fought off an early lead by Swiatek, wiping out a set point to win a tightly-contested first-set tiebreak. Serving up 6-5 in the tiebreak, Swiatek set up a short forehand but pushed the ball beyond the baseline with her 20th unforced error keep Noskova in the set. After Swiatek saved a set point with a clean backhand winner, Noskova converted her second chance with a looping forehand that Swiatek helplessly watched drop inside the sideline.

Swiatek stormed back immediately in the second set, racing to a seemingly safe 5-1 lead. But the Pole's precision game remained shakey. Noskova reeled off three consecutive games and earned a break point to level to 5-5. But Swiatek saved set point to hold and force the match into a deciding frame.

The opening games of the final set remained close. Noskova escaped Swiatek's early return pressure, saving break point to hold to 1-0. But a double-fault at 2-2 gave Swiatek her second break point of the game and she converted as Noskova flew a forehand long.

Noskova made one final push. With Swiatek serving to close out the win at 5-4, the Czech earned triple break point with a clean forehand winner. The World No.1 responded with class, striking three clean winners to get to deuce and closed out the match on her first match point.

Swiatek will have a quick turnaround, but the 22-year-old is keen to move on from her up-and-down performance.

"You know that I'm an over-thinker," Swiatek said. "Usually the best tactic for me is to let it go. I want to use this experience. I'm pretty sure tomorrow I'm going to do that if everything goes well. Usually also these kind of things just settle in my head on their own. I'm just going to trust that it's going to be like that again."

Swiatek will face 14th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in the Round of 16 on Monday. Alexandrova advanced with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Swiatek leads the head-to-head 3-1.

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Talk about 2 very different matches!. The match in Indian Wells a week ago, or even the first match in Miami was like night and day compared to this. The term winning ugly perfectly incapsulates what transpired in this one.

 
What looked like in both sets to be a fairly routine win. Turned into quite an unexpected rollercoaster!.

With both players struggling to find rhythm on serve and making an uncharacteristic amount of unforced errors.

I have to wonder if along with the change of venue the night conditions is what really threw Iga off here (especially as it got later into the night).

She was after all suppose to start her Miami campaign at night the match prior, but got moved due to rain so it ended up being a day match.

I admit to peeking through my fingers when Iga went down love-40 serving for the match. Still not quite sure how she got out of it. But I guess the old adage of champions find a way certainly fits here.

Definitely not one to remember in terms of quality, but certainly for the grit Iga showed in her worst performing days. So we wipe the slate clean, and live to fight and do better another day.

Jazda!

Iga Swiatek triumphant in return to Miami Open

In the 100th WTA 1000 match of her career, World No.1 Iga Swiatek of Poland powered to a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Italy's Camila Giorgi in the second round of the Miami Open on Saturday.

"I was feeling really pretty confident and I just wanted to see how I'm going to feel the surface," last week's Indian Wells champion Swiatek said after her latest win. "It was all really comfortable, so I'm happy."

Swiatek, the 2022 Miami Open champion, took just 67 minutes to dismiss big-hitting Giorgi, a former Top 30 player currently ranked No.107. Swiatek, who had a first-round bye, has not lost her opening match at any tournament since 2021 Cincinnati.

Top-seeded Swiatek now holds a 2-1 lead in her head-to-head with Giorgi. This was their first meeting outside of the Australian Open, with Giorgi winning in Melbourne in 2019 and Swiatek prevailing Down Under in 2021.

Keeping it 100: With her victory on Saturday, Swiatek has won 81 of her first 100 WTA 1000 matches. Only Serena Williams notched more wins in her first 100 matches at WTA 1000-level, with an 87-13 record. Swiatek and Maria Sharapova are tied for second place with matching 81-19 records.

If Swiatek goes all the way to the title this week, she will become only the second woman to pull off the Sunshine Double (winning Indian Wells and Miami in the same year) two times. Stefanie Graf is currently the only woman to have achieved the feat twice, in 1994 and 1996. Swiatek got her first Sunshine Double in 2022.

By the numbers: Giorgi hit six double faults in her first two service games as Swiatek raced to a 4-0 lead on Saturday. Swiatek stared down four break points at 4-1 but got out of that jam on her way to the one-set lead. Those would prove to be the only break points she faced all day.

Swiatek had an equally easy time in the second set as she romped to her tour-leading 21st win of the year. Swiatek converted five of her 11 break points on the day, and her 18 unforced errors were exactly half of Giorgi's 36.

Noskova awaits again: Swiatek will see a familiar face in the third round when she takes on No.26 seed Linda Noskova. Czech teenager Noskova defeated qualifier Maria Timofeeva 6-4, 6-4 on Saturday.

Swiatek and Noskova have already battled twice in the third round of huge events this year. The 19-year-old Czech Noskova stunned Swiatek in the third round of the Australian Open, en route to her first Grand Slam quarterfinal. Swiatek got her revenge when she beat Noskova earlier this month in the same round at Indian Wells.

"Playing against [Noskova] is tough, as you could see in Australia," Swiatek said. "I'm going to focus on myself and learn what I did wrong, what I did good on our last matches and just use that knowledge so I can play in a solid way, really efficiently."

wtatennis.com

Basically the one day rain delay took longer than this match :D. Iga really didn't have to do a whole lot, Georgi give her a lot of free points with double faults.