Iga Swiatek avenged last year's Madrid Open loss to Aryna Sabalenka by beating her in an epic final this year.
The Polish player put together an impressive week of tennis to find herself in the Madrid Open final again. After failing to win the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, everybody expected Swiatek to come out with a lot of fire, and she certainly did just that.
She made it to the final without any problems, unlike the Belarusian, who had to endure a couple of tricky matches. The H2H generally favors Swiatek, but Sabalenka has given her problems in the past.
She also won this WTA 1000 event two times, which is impressive in itself. The start was shaky for Sabalenka, but she would fight back and break back immediately.
It's nothing we haven't seen from her this week, but the fierce battle continued. Both had chances, but neither used their chances. The first one to do so was Swiatek, at 5-5, breaking for a 6-5 lead.
She won the opening set 7-5 but fell behind rather quickly in the second set. Sabalenka was quite overwhelming from the baseline most of the time, but Swiatek could handle that well. She didn't handle it that well in the second set.
She pulled back the initial break but then got broken at 5-4 for Sabalenka, which sealed the second set for the second seed. The final set featured a tough battle between the players.
Sabalenka jumped out to an early lead of 3-1, but Swiatek was able to battle back and make it 3-3. After that, both players won their service games comfortably, and it was 4-4.
Sabalenka would get match points at 5-4, but she slammed the forehand wide. The match ended up in a tiebreak ultimately, and Swiatek was able to get it done with her second match point. She saved three herself to win the match 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(7).
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