By Richard Pagliaro | Saturday, March 11, 2023
Defending Indian Wells champion Iga Swiatek stormed through 11 straight games crushing Claire Liu 6-0, 6-1 in a 65-minute thrashing to roll into round three.
Photo credit: Robert Prange/Getty
Iga Swiatek speaks multiple languages.
Complacency isn't part of her vocabulary in any of them.
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Launching defense of her Indian Wells title, the desert queen played desert destroyer today.
Swiatek stormed through 11 straight games crushing Claire Liu 6-0, 6-1 in a 65-minute thrashing to roll into round three.
Bidding to become just the second woman to defend the BNP Paribas Open and first since Hall of Famer Martina Navratilova in 1991, a sharp Swiatek commanded the center of the court raising her 2023 record to 13-3.
It was Swiatek's seventh straight Indian Wells victory and her first match since she fell to 2021 Roland Garros singles and doubles champion Barbora Krejcikova in the Dubai final.
World No. 1 Swiatek was nearly perfect in her return to tennis paradise: she served 73 percent, won 24 of 30 first-serve points, did not face a break point and was whipping winners down both lines with ruthless precision.
"For sure I'm happy with the performance," Swiatek said. "It was a really solid match and I'm happy with how I adjusted to the wind, because when we were practicing, it wasn't that windy.
"Tactically and tennis-wise, everything was on point. So I'm pretty happy with my game."
The reigning Indian Wells and Miami Open champion extended her Sunshine Double winning streak to 13 matches with five of those 13 wins straight-sets sweeps of American opponents: Madison Keys, Madison Brengle, Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula and Liu today.
When Liu, who beat world No. 2 Ons Jabeur last year, took a 40-15 lead in the opening game surely some were thinking "no bagel today."
Swiatek was in no mood for drama. The fourth woman to win the Sunshine Double was scalding shots into the corners.
How dominant was Iga today?
Swiatek won 25 of 32 points played in the first set. The 56th-ranked Liu won only nine first-serve points and did not earn another game point until she served at 0-6, 0-3 only to see Swiatek drill a diagonal forehand to break again.
"For sure this tournament last year showed me that I can play in any conditions, and I believe a little bit more that I can adjust to any conditions," Swiatek said. "Sometimes it's going to be more smooth; sometimes not. But we will see what's gonna happen this year.
"It's for sure I think like maybe not the toughest one -- well, at some points it's the toughest one maybe except the surface because it's slow and I like slower surfaces."
Firing forehands over 75 mph, Swiatek took a 6-0, 5-0 lead and had a match point for the double bagel, but netted a forehand.
Credit Thousand Oaks, California Liu for continuing to battle. Liu, who wasn't changing the height on her shots too match, perhaps would have been wise to try to play high to Swiatek's flat backhand, Still, Liu denied the double bagel with her best shot of the day, a brilliant running forehand pass to hold for 1-5.
That strike spiked a roar from the crowd and a smile from Liu who raised her Head racquet in acknowledgement of the cheers.
Still, Swiatek was so locked in on the job at hand she looked slightly annoyed losing a single game. Swiatek slammed shut a 65-minute win in the following game.
Playing for her second title of the season, the top-seeded Swiatek will face either Bianca Andreescu, in what would be a clash of the current and 2019 US Open champions, or 21-year-old American wild card Peyton Stearns.
Making her Indian Wells debut this week, Karolina Muchova knocked off two-time former champion Victoria Azarenka 7-6(1), 6-3.
Former Australian Open semifinalist Muchova beat the 14th-seeded Azarenka in key forehand exchanges and defend her second serve with more confidence. Muchova won 22 of 33 points played on Azarenka's second serve and converted five of nine break points in a two hour, five-minute stadium one victory.
The 76th-ranked Czech moves into a third round meeting against either 23rd-seeded Italian Martina Trevisan or American Brengle.
The 14th-seeded Azarenka wasn't the only seed to fall on the busiest day of the tournament so far.
Emma Raducanu rallied from 1-4 down defeating Australian Open semifinalist Magda Linette 7-6(3), 6-2.
"I was really pleased to have won today," Raducanu said. "I was the other day, as well. But as I said, I was so out of it, I didn't really know what was going on.
"But today, yeah, I was so pleased with the way I fought. Because Magda played, like, really high level. Like some things that were working in the past weren't working today, and I adapted.
"Yeah, I was, yeah, just very, very pleased with how I fought and dug in."
The 2021 US Open champion Raducanu landed in Indian Wells unsure if her cranky right wrist would permit her to play. Though Raducanu took treatment on her wrist today, she's shown a stinging forehand and competitive spunk rallying from a break down in three of the four sets she's played this week.
Afterward, Raducanu said the wrist issue is "manageable" though she declined to detail the specifics of the injury.
"It's the same. It's manageable," Raducanu said of her wrist. "Still able to win matches at this level. Managing it. Yeah, as to what it is, I'm not going to go into it."
The 20-year-old Briton scored back-to-back wins for the first time this season and first time since last Seoul last fall.
World No. 77 Raducanu will take on another dangerous seed, No. 13-seeded Beatriz Haddad Maia next. The left-handed Brazilian held off Katerina Siniakova 5-7, 7-6(4), 6-3.