Iga Swiatek might have thrashed Daria Kasatkina at the 2024 WTA Finals, but ultimately, her win didn't matter.
The year-end championships on both Tours are quite unique, since they are played in a different format than the rest of the tournaments. Players are also not used to it, and sometimes they are confused by the format.
The round-robin stage at the WTA Finals offers players a chance to lose one or even two of their three round-robin matches and still make it to the semi-finals, but tennis players don't often enjoy the mathematics of the different scenarios.
At the end of the day, they are athletes, and like at any other tournament, they want to win every match that they play. There is also an incentive to do that, as for every win in the round-robin stage, players receive 200 ranking points and $350,000 in prize money.
That's the mindset that Swiatek came into her last round-robin match with. She thrashed Kasatkina 6-1, 6-0, recording her second win at the tournament, which would qualify her for the semi-finals most of the time, but this time, that wasn't the case as she had to wait for the conclusion of the last match between Coco Gauff and Barbora Krejcikova.
Regardless of whether she made it to the semi-finals or not, the Polish player was happy to get her second win at the event, and she also thanked the fans who supported her in Riyadh.
"It was a pretty solid performance from me. I’m happy that I did everything to win it and glad I have two wins in the group now. I feel like I was spinning the ball well and picking the right shots to play faster and being solid."
"Thank you guys for the support. It means a lot, and any place I go, I hear this support. I haven’t played in a while and I miss this feeling of the support."
However, in the press conference after her match, the World No. 2 player learned the brutal reality of her situation. Despite winning two matches in the group stage, Swiatek didn't secure her semi-final spot.
The last match of the round-robin stage between Gauff and Krejcikova was about to be played, and if the Czech player won that match, Swiatek would be out of the tournament.
She was asked after her match against Kasatkina how she felt going into it, knowing that the result ultimately didn't impact her chances to qualify for the semi-finals. Learning that was the case, Swiatek had a hilarious reaction: "You mean it didn’t matter?"
Unfortunately for the 23-year-old, it really didn't matter as Krejcikova stunned Gauff, meaning Swiatek was eliminated from the tournament, even though she had two wins at the event.
Still, she admitted that as a professional, she goes out to play every match to win it, and that's what she did also against Kasatkina. She won the match, but it wasn't enough to qualify for the next stage of the tournament.
"Honestly, I don't think it matters, like we go out on court to win every match anyway. So I wasn't thinking about that. I didn't know that this is the case. I'm professional enough to always give 100 percent no matter what the stakes are."
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