Iga Swiatek rifles past Collins in 52 minutes in Doha

Another day, another dominant performance from world No 1 Iga Swiatek. The Pole zoomed past American Danielle Collins in Doha on Wednesday, racing to a 6-0, 6-1 victory in 52 blink-and-you-missed-them minutes.

“Last season was great, but also it puts a lot of baggage on one’s shoulders. So I’m trying to really kind of shake it up and move forward and not really come back to what happened last year.”

Iga Swiatek, Doha, 2023

Swiatek improves to 7-2 in 2023 as she enters the section of the season that saw her reel off a 37-match winning streak last year. The three-time Slam champion ran the table from Doha all the way to the end of Roland-Garros in 2022, sweeping through Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart, Rome and Paris without a defeat and amassing the longest winning streak on the WTA Tour since 1997.

Swiatek – It’s about the next challenge

Swiatek is more focused on the future than the past, however. After her dominant display on Wednesday the 21-year-old said she’s trying to shake off those memories and create new ones for herself.

“For me it was a pretty nice chapter but I’m really looking forward to the next challenges,” she said. “Last season was great, but also it puts a lot of baggage on one’s shoulders. So I’m trying to really kind of shake it up and move forward and not really come back to what happened last year.”

Read also

Swiatek on business and bold choices: “I want to use my impact well in a way that is healthy for me”

Tennis Majors

Swiatek will look forward to a heavily anticipated clash with Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic in the quarter-finals on Thursday in Doha. Seventh-seeded Belinda Bencic improved to 14-2 on the season with a 1-6, 7-6(4), 6-4 comeback against Victoria Azarenka on Wednesday, and will face Swiatek for the second time in as many months.

Swiatek earned a 6-3, 7-6(3) victory over Bencic at United Cup. The Pole owns a 2-1 lifetime edge over the 25-year-old.

“Belinda is such a great player we played at United Cup and  it was a really tight match,” Swiatek said. “I know it’s gonna be intense and it’s a big challenge. I’m gonna try to use my experience and, and we’ll see. but I know it’s gonna be fun because you know, playing with Belinda, she plays really fast so you kind of have to be on your toes all the time.”

Collins, ranked No 42, defeated Belgian qualifier Elise Mertens (6-4, 7-6 (6)) in the previous round of the Doha Open.

Doha WTA 500, other second-round results (Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex, hard, USD 780.637, most recent results first):

• Karolina Muchova vs. Caroline Garcia
• Beatriz Haddad Maia beat Daria Kasatkina (6): 6-3, 7-6 (7)
• Maria Sakkari (5) beat Ekaterina Alexandrova: 6-3, 6-2
• Jessica Pegula (2) beat Jelena Ostapenko: 6-2, 2-6, 7-5
• Veronika Kudermetova (8) beat Sofia Kenin (WC): 6-2, 7-5
• Coco Gauff (4) beat Petra Kvitova: 6-3, 7-6 (6)
• Belinda Bencic beat Victoria Azarenka (WC): 1-6, 7-6 (4), 6-4

You might also like this

The statistics that defined 2022 – inside Iga Swiatek’s mind-blowing 37-match winning streak

tennis majors

37 on the trot – Iga Swiatek ties Martina Hingis for longest WTA win streak since ’97

tennis majors