Iga Swiatek wins third title of 2025 with fantastic comeback in Seoul

Sunday, 21 September 2025 at 13:13

byErik Virostko

Iga Swiatek lifted her third title of the season after beating Ekaterina Alexandrova in a tight Korea Open final.

Despite often being unhappy with the busy schedule and previously withdrawing from the Billie Jean King Cup Finals on multiple occasions, Swiatek was the first Top 10 player to return to action after this year's US Open.

She entered the 2025 Korea Open draw as the top seed and the only Top 10 player. The second-highest-ranked player in the draw was the second-seeded Ekaterina Alexandrova, ranked 11th in the world, and the top two seeds eventually met in the final.

Swiatek confidently beat Sorana Cirstea, Barbora Krejcikova, and Maya Joint on her way to the final, losing only 10 games along the way. Alexandrova, on the other hand, outplayed Lois Boisson, Ella Seidel, and Katerina Siniakova.

In the final, the top-seeded Swiatek didn't start well. She was making one mistake after another in the opening set of the match. That helped her opponent, who played a great first set. Alexandrova hit four aces in the opening set and pushed the Polish player.

As a result, Alexandrova won the first set dominantly, 6-1, and Swiatek was forced to look for answers in the second set of the match. The world No. 2 player started well, breaking her opponent's serve in the opening set, but she immediately lost her one-break advantage.

Both players then held their serve for the remainder of the set, so a tie-break had to decide. Swiatek started it with a mini-break, and after adding another mini-break, she won the second-set tie-break 7-3, forcing a decider.

But it was Alexandrova who started better in the third set. She broke the top seed's serve, leading 3-1 after the first four games played. Swiatek then broke back and leveled the score at 3-3. Both players then had two chances to break each other, but those remained unused.

At 5-5, it seemed that another tie-break would need to decide the Korea Open champion. However, Swiatek had different plans. She broke Alexandrova's serve once more to win the final match 1-6, 7-6(3), 7-5, securing the WTA 500 title in Seoul.

It was Swiatek's third title of the season after winning trophies in Cincinnati and at the US Open. For Alexandrova, on the other hand, it was a solid result, and she was happy after the final.

"Thank you for coming today. You are an amazing crowd. It was such a pleasure to play in front of you tonight. Thank you so much guys. I want to congratulate Iga for such a great week and such a great result. She’s such a great player. It’s always super difficult to play her."

"I tried to do my best today. It wasn’t enough, so maybe next time I’ll do a bit better. Congrats to you and your team. I wish you all the best for the rest of the season."