The emotions associated with the Paris Olympics have subsided, but that doesn’t mean the tennis impressions associated with Iga Swiatek’s performances this year are over. After a few days of rest, the current world’s best player headed to Cincinnati to compete in the WTA 1000 tournament in Ohio. It is a rehearsal for our representative before the US Open Grand Slam.Which will start in 1.5 weeks.
The 23-year-old had a few days to get familiar with the new, flat balls. In Ohio I trained, among other things, with Kenwen Cheng. And Daria Kasatkina. Until the moment came to play her first official match since the performance in Paris. In the morning, the top of the women’s ranking went to Varwara Grachiwa, a Russian who has been representing France for more than a year. The one-year-old has the advantage of having already played three matches in this year’s competition in Cincinnati – two in the qualifying rounds and one in the main category, where she started from the first round.
She competed with Ajla Tomljanovic for the right to play for IGA. They both had a fierce duel, It ended in a tiebreaker for the third set.Due to the fact that the organizers scheduled the clash between Swiatek and Graziewa for Wednesday evening local time, Warwara took part in the competition for the fourth day in a row. Both tennis players have faced each other at the professional level once in the past – during last year’s WTA 1000 tournament in Beijing, Iga turned out to be the better player, winning 6:4, 6:1. We hoped that this time the fight would end in favor of the Pole.
Iga Svetik’s victory. Unexpected pole problems in finishing the match
The WTA top seed started the match with her serve. Although we had the advantage, we felt a bit calm in our player’s game. The 23-year-old’s serve also looked good, with aces appearing. After the Pole managed to close out the match in her favor, Iga followed up and put pressure on her opponent. So much so that In the entire set, her opponent only scored… 8 points.After 22 minutes, Swiatek closed out the first set with a 6-0 score. It was the 12th such result this season for the world’s best racket.
The Polish player also opened the second part of the match by winning the match on her own serve, then led 30-0 on her opponent’s serve. Then She made a mistake during the knockout blow that turned the match in favor of the French representative.Graciwa finally added a point to her achievements, and was rewarded with thunderous applause. However, the Pole was not worried about missing the opportunity. After a while, she confidently held her serve again, and ended the match with an ace.
At the next opportunity, Iga went for it. She broke Varvara to zero, then confirmed the advantage and it was already 4:1. Świątek earned four match points in game eight.but none of them could be used. Unexpectedly, the Pole deviated from her good game for a moment, and lost her serve without winning the point. Graczewa suddenly felt her chance. She leveled the score at 5:5 and unexpectedly we had a close end to the set.
There was a tiebreaker, although there was another game in the twelfth game in Iga’s favour. The decisive game started the way the 23-year-old wanted it to be, with the score at 4-1. However, the next five arrows went to Gracioa’s account. Unexpectedly, the French team got two specific points.The Pole made up for the loss, but then Warara had a third, fourth and fifth chance. Finally, the 24-year-old player achieved her goal and extended the competition in the match with a score of 7:6(8).
At the beginning of the third set, you could see a lot of interaction between the Pole and her camp, and she was looking for advice. It became very tense, and there were a lot of emotions. The 23-year-old couldn’t understand why the match suddenly turned against her. Coach Tomasz Wiktorowsky admitted that The top seed slowed down her game a bit and her opponent took advantage of that perfectly.Which made her suddenly start to respond.
In the decisive match, Iga was the first to break through, but lost it after a while. Fortunately, the Polish player later regained control of the events for good and followed her coach’s advice. This time she had no problem finishing the duel. And eventually won 6:0, 6:7(8), 6:2. Our representative’s opponent in the quarterfinals of the WTA 1000 tournament in Cincinnati will be Marta Kostyuk. Today, the Ukrainian defeated the star of Wimbledon – Lulu Sun, winning with a score of 6:3, 7:5.
Detailed recording of the match between Iga Świątek and Warwara Graczewa is available. here.
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