By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Saturday February 27, 2021
Iga Swiatek made short work of Belinda Benic in the Adelaide final to claim her second career final.
Photo Source: Getty
Iga Swiatek had never been past the round of 16 at a WTA hard court event prior to this week, but the Pole has a way of looking difficult tasks look easy, and acing her entrance exams. The woman who rolled to the Roland-Garros title last year without ever dropping more than four games in a set, was a tour de force at Adelaide this week and ended up dropping just 22 games en route to her second career title.
Swiatek rolled past No.2-seeded Belinda Bencic in Saturday’s final, 6-2, 6-2, capping a brilliant week that saw her drop more than three games in a set just once through five matches.
The performance was flawless from start to finish, and Bencic never threatened over the course of the 62-minute contest. Swiatek cracked 22 winners against six unforced errors, converted four of six break point attempts and never faced a break point while dropping a total of six points on serve (yes, you read that right).
It was sheer domination from the 19-year-old, who will rise to a career-high ranking of No.15 in the world on Monday’s rankings. One can imagine her a lot higher by the end of the season.
Swiatek improves to 9-2 in 2021 and she has made it her mission to perform consistently across all events, not just the Grand Slams. She has rebounded brilliantly from a fourth-round loss at the Australian Open to Simona Halep and taken a big step at proving that she can be a week-in and week-out force on the WTA Tour.
“It was my goal from the beginning of the season,” Swiatek said. “I want to be, like, a more consistent player, just play good week by week. I know it's impossible sometimes. You're just going to get tired at some point. But I felt pretty good from the beginning of the tournament. It's really important for me. Just I feel that it's going to be easier year by year because I'm going to be more grown up, I'm going to be able to physically and mentally handle tournaments every week.”
Swiatek improves to 18-5 since the tour’s resumption last summer, and she has earned 16 of those victories in straight sets. The Pole improves to 7-5 lifetime against the Top 20 and 2-1 lifetime in finals with her victory.
“Yeah, it was my goal, so I'm pretty happy everything worked here,” she said during a press conference this weekend in Adelaide. “Hopefully other WTA tournaments I'm going to be able to do that also.”
Bencic drops to 4-7 lifetime in finals. The Swiss last claimed a title in 2019 at Moscow.