WTA Madrid: Swiatek suffers a rout, Gauff will face Sabalenka for the title

On May 1, local time, the WTA1000 Madrid Open women's singles final lineup was produced, and the defending champion Swiatek was out of the tournament, and the No. 4 seed Gauff swept the Polish star 6-1/6-1 in only 64 minutes, winning her first victory against Swiatek on clay, and also won three consecutive victories against the latter, reaching the Madrid final for the first time in her career.

Gauff

According to the post-match technical statistics, Gauff scored 18 winning points and made four unforced errors, while Swiatek only had seven winners and a whopping 21 unforced errors. Gauff was the only player to have never faced a break point in the entire match against Swiatek on clay and handed the Pole his second-worst victory on clay at WTA level (the first being Halep 1-6, 0-6 at the 2019 French Open).

A four-time French Open champion, Swiatek has won an astonishing percentage on clay in recent years, and last year she achieved a trio on clay in Madrid and Rome at the French Open. Speaking after the game, Swiatek said: "To be honest, there wasn't much to say about the game itself, it was pretty much the same from start to finish. I couldn't improve myself, Coco (Gauff) was doing well, but the main thing was that I wasn't moving well enough and I was really bad. I put too much pressure on myself and today I collapsed in all aspects. ”

Swiatek's recent poor form seems to have been influenced by family factors, with the Polish's grandfather who died during Stuttgart, returning to her native Poland to attend her grandfather's funeral before heading to Madrid.

Sabalenka

Swiatek suffered a heavy defeat and missed out on Sabalenka's third consecutive title match in Madrid, where she defeated 17th seed Svitolina 6-3, 7-5 in the semi-finals to end her recent nine-match winning streak on clay. Sabalenka has reached four finals in the last five years (2021 and 2023), the 13th 1000 final of her career, and has won 30 matches this season, leading women's tennis.

Sabalenka and Gauff will meet for the 10th time, with the Americans holding a narrow 5-4 advantage. Gauff also won their only previous meeting on clay (Rome 2021) and won the most recent meeting between the two (WTA Finals 2024). If Sabalenka wins, she will become the second Madrid women's singles triple champion after Kvitova; A win for Gauff would see her first clay 1000 title.

(Text, Editor/Faye Wong, Photo/Visual China)