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By Richard Pagliaro | Friday, February 24, 2023

 
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World No. 1 Iga Swiatek soared through five straight games sweeping Coco Gauff 6-4, 6-2 to charge into her first Dubai final today.

Photo credit: Getty for Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships

Long before Iga Swiatek was lifting Grand Slam silverware, she was math whiz in school.

Imposing acute angles and number crunching authority, Swiatek continues posing unsolvable problems for class competitors.

More: Gauff Beats Keys, Aims to Breakthrough vs. World No. 1 Swiatek

Commanding the center of the court, Swiatek soared through five straight games sweeping Coco Gauff 6-4, 6-2 to charge into her first Dubai final today.

Delivering dominance in the desert, Swiatek raised her record to 6-0 against Gauff—her most wins against any opponent—and 6-0 in WTA 1000 semifinals.




"For sure Coco is a great player, you know," said Swiatek after raising her 2023 record to 12-2. "I knew it's gonna be tough especially after last year we played like five times.

"It's always tough. You never know if you're going to see something new or not. I just wanted to kind of focus on myself and keep going. And just be concentrated with my tactics."

The world No. 1 carries a 12-2 finals record into the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships final against Barbora Krejcikova in what will be a clash of the reigning and former Roland Garros champions.

The 2021 Roland Garros singles and doubles champion Krejcikova beat third-seeded Jessica Pegula, 6-1, 5-7, 6-0. Krejcikova, who upset Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka in a rousing quarterfinal comeback yesterday, won 25 of 32 points played in the final set. 

Former world No. 2 Krejcikova will contest her second Dubai final in the last three years as she aims to knock off the world's top two-ranked players. Krejcikova beat Swiatek to collect her fifth title in Ostrava last fall.

Today's opening semifinal was a rematch of the 2022 French Open final. n Roland Garros' red clay, a sharp Swiatek outclassed an 18-year-old Gauff 6-1, 6-3 to lift La Coupe Suzanne Lenglen for the second time in the last three years—and stretch her winning streak to 35 matches.

The Swiatek twisting topspin forehand is one of the heaviest in the sport and she's used it to batter the Gauff forehand which is predicated on a more elaborate takeback. Swiatek rushed that wing and rattled errors today. When she wasn't doing damage with her forehand, Swiatek slashed biting backhands, sometimes while sliding, and stood up to Gauff's stinging serve. Swiatek swarmed the Gauff second serve winning 17 of 22 points played on the American's second delivery and breaking five times.

While Gauff came out trying to hit big, take the battle to the world No. 1 and drive her forehand down the line over the higher part of the net to the Pole's backhand, Swiatek had all the solutions. Spreading the court shrewdly, Swiatek scored her first of a couple of love breaks for 2-1 and quickly consolidated at 15.

They exchanged breaks in the seventh and eighth games.

In an eye-popping display of athleticism, a sliding Swiatek slashed a backhand down the line that skidded off the sideline. Gauff got it back, but Swiatek was quick to run around her backhand and bang a diagonal forehand for double break and set points.

The teenager saved the first set point with a deep kick serve and a slick backhand swing volley.

On the second set point, Gauff redirected a stifling return rifling a backhand winner down the line.

Showing the serve-and-volley for the first time in this semifinal, Gauff used guile, variety and explosiveness earning a hard-fought hold for 4-5.

It was a crucial hold to extend the set and break an ignominious streak for Gauff: this was the first time since the first set of her 7-6(3), 6-3 loss to the Pole at the 2021 Rome that the 18-year-old American won more than three games in a set against Swiatek.

Serving for the set again, Swiatek showed some jitters sending a double fault deep to drop to 30-all.

The top seed soothed stress cranking a crosscourtbackhand for set point number three—the first set point on her serve. Gauff pasted the baseline with a big forehand repelling the third set point.

Still, Swiatek knows she has the winning solution and imposed it rattling errors from the Gauff forehand.




Targeting her opponent's forehand return wing, Swiatek elicted netted return for a fourth set point only to net a mid-court backhand sitter. The forehand let Gauff down again as Swiatek gained a fifth set point.

This time, Swiatek closed stretching Gauff to seal the 51-minute opener. Swiatek served 73 percent compared to 48 percent for Gauff and played cleaner tennis through. Gauff tried to play big and bold at times to take it to the top seed, but Swiatek found the lines more frequently and committed six fewer unforced errors.

In How to Play Better Tennis, Hall of Famer Big Bill Tilden wrote one of the sport's fundamental truths: Never change a winning game plan, always change a losing one.

Credit Auckland champion Gauff for trying to throw different things at Swiatek. The problem Swiatek poses for Gauff and the rest of the Tour is she can overpower you offensively or dig in and beat you defensively on points when necessary. Gauff's quickness around the court and fast first step gives her the edge against most, but Swiatek, arguably the best pure athlete in the game, can run with Gauff and detonated damaging running strikes today.

Both women left the court after the first set. Gauff returned to faced immediate double-break point pressure.

An impressive aspect of Swiatek's imposing all-court arsenal is how she seemingly tips the court in her favor. Like her tennis hero, Rafa Nadal, Swiatek is superb hitting offensive shots from defensive positions and firing with accuracy and ambition on the move. She showed it whipping some tremendous sliding backhands and sometimes dropping to a squat, Agnieszka Radwanska style, using her legs and hips to power back deep drives from Gauff.



Though both Swiatek and Gauff play with western grip forehands, Swiatek is more adept shortening her backswing when necessary and much more comfortable driving the low ball with authority off that wing to drop it inside the baseline with cliffhanger topspin whereas Gauff was netting low forehands with more frequency and sometimes resorts to the slice forehand off the low ball. Swiatek recognizes it and sometimes altered direction of rallies taking her flat backhand to the American's forehand.

Swiatek slashed an ace and a sharp wide serve backing up the break with a love hold.

The top seed was making the sweet spot sing from her Tecnifibre racquet, rapping winners and damaging drives from all areas of the court.

Swiatek stormed through 10 straight points streaking through successive shutout games to stretch her lead to 3-0.




Playing dynamic tennis, Swiatek sped through five straight games extending to 4-0.

Seventy-five minutes into the match, Gauff channeled second-set frustration into a stirring running forehand winner—her best forehand of the match—to stop the bleeding holding for 1-4.

That strike gave Gauff some buzz and she broke back at 15 on Swiatek's third double fault of the day for 2-4.

Every time Gauff made inroads, Swiatek snuffed out the trail. Gauff came forward and knocked off a couple of forehand stretch volleys, but an oppressive Swiatek slid a forehand pass down the line breaking for fifth time.

On her first match point, Swiatek provoked one final netted forehand return to move to 6-0 lifetime against Gauff. About the only issue Swiatek, who is struggling with a bit of a sore throat, had came after the match when she tried to change the message she wrote on the camera inviting her dad to come to the final.

"I heard my dad is coming to the final so I wanted to make sure that he's actually going to come because it's not often he comes to matches," Swiatek said. "Hopefully, he will. So I just wanted to ask him and pressure him...

"I'm pretty happy tennis is working out because writing and talking isn't working out too well."

 

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