Iga Swiatek will be playing in the 2023 Madrid Open final after beating Veronika Kudermetova in a dominant style.
If the young Pole is on top of her game, she dominates in the majority of the matches that she plays and even her opponents feel it. Ahead of their meeting, Kudermetova said that Swiatek plays like men, describing her aggressive approach.
She surely felt like she was playing against some of her colleagues from the ATP Tour in their fourth meeting on the WTA Tour as Swiatek didn't allow it to be any more dramatic than the previous three. The last match was a 6-0, 6-1 win for the Pole and this time she achieved a very similar result.
The World No. 1 dominated dominated the match from start to finish, allowing her opponent to have only one break point in the first set. On the other hand, she had seven and used two of those to win it 6-1 and gain early advantage.
Kudermetova was more active on the return in the second set with a total of four break points, but once again the Pole saved them all and even improved her stats when having break points herself.
Swiatek had five chances to break in the second set and used three to record another impressive win against the Russian, beating her 6-1, 6-1 in 80 minutes and advancing to the final of the 2023 Madrid Open.
As the top seed, Swiatek will now face World No.2 Aryna Sabalenka in the final, marking the second consecutive WTA Tour event where these two outstanding players will compete for the title. Earlier in the day, Sabalenka defeated No.9 seed Maria Sakkari in the first semifinal match, setting up the highly anticipated rematch.
The stage is set for an exhilarating final, as Swiatek and Sabalenka have a rich history of memorable matches. Just eleven days ago, Swiatek emerged victorious over Sabalenka in the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix final in Stuttgart. Heading into the Madrid final, Swiatek boasts a 5-2 win-loss record against Sabalenka, with all three of their previous clay-court meetings ending in Swiatek's favor.
This extraordinary showdown between the World No.1 and No.2 will go down in the history books, as it will be only the third time in the last 40 years that the top two players have faced each other twice on clay during a single season.
The two previous instances occurred in 1984, when Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert competed in Amelia Island and Roland Garros, and in 2013, when Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova locked horns in Stuttgart and Roland Garros.
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