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Iga leads Australian Open entry list

Australian Open 2022: World No 1 Swiatek leads entry list.

This year’s champion, Ashleigh Barty, retired from professional tennis in March and will not defend her title…reports Asian Lite News

World No.1 Iga Swiatek leads the entry list for next year’s Australian Open, which is based on the WTA rankings of the week beginning December 5.

Reigning Roland Garros and US Open champion Swiatek is one of 12 current or former Grand Slam winners who have entered the first major of 2023, which begins on January 16 in Melbourne. The Pole, who reached her first Australian Open semifinal this year, will be bidding to add a fourth Grand Slam title to her haul so far.

Three former Australian Open champions are in the line-up — Victoria Azarenka (2012-13), Naomi Osaka (2019, 2021) and Sofia Kenin (2020) — as well as three former Australian Open runners-up, Petra Kvitova (2019), Garbie Muguruza (2020) and Danielle Collins (2022).

This year’s champion, Ashleigh Barty, retired from professional tennis in March and will not defend her title.

Alongside Swiatek, Azarenka, Osaka, Kenin, Kvitova and Muguruza, the remaining roster of Grand Slam champions in the field comprises Jelena Ostapenko, Barbora Krejcikova, Elena Rybakina, Sloane Stephens, Bianca Andreescu and Emma Raducanu.

As per WTA, nineteen of the world’s Top 20 are entered, with the only exception being the provisionally suspended Simona Halep.

Kenin, currently ranked No.240 and on the comeback trail after an injury-struck season, is one of 11 players using a special ranking to enter the main draw.

The others include two former Grand Slam finalists, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Marketa Vondrousova, as well as Karolina Muchova, Nadia Podoroska, Laura Siegemund, Jaqueline Cristian, Patricia Maria Tig, Evgeniya Rodina, Zheng Saisai and Kristina Kucova.

No.95-ranked Ysaline Bonaventure is the last player to be directly accepted into the main draw. In the event of withdrawals, the next five players in would be Harriet Dart, Kateryna Baindl, Dayana Yastremska, Alycia Parks and Margarita Betova (ne Gasparyan, using a special ranking).

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Iga beats Coco Gauff for second French Open title

She is also the youngest woman to win multiple majors since Maria Sharapova won her second Grand Slam title aged 19 at the 2006 US Open…reports Asian Lite News

Capping off her flawless clay-court season, World No. 1 Iga Swiatek clinched the French Open singles title after beating No 18 seed Coco Gauff 6-1, 6-3 in the final, here on Saturday.

Two years ago, Swiatek shocked the field by winning her first Roland Garros title as an unseeded teenager. This time, the polish star claimed her second French Open title by winning a staggering 35th consecutive match, tying Venus Williams for the best winning streak this century.

Venus’ historic run of 35 straight victories came in 2000. If Swiatek manages to win her next match, she will hold the best winning streak of the century alone, and tie Monica Seles’s 36-match run from 1990. Another victory after that would tie Martina Hingis’s 37-match winning streak from 1997.

Swiatek also becomes only the tenth woman to win multiple Roland Garros singles titles in the Open Era (since 1968). Having just turned 21 on Tuesday, Swiatek is the fourth-youngest player to triumph more than once in Paris — only Monica Seles, Stefanie Graf, and Chris Evert were younger when they did so.

She is also the youngest woman to win multiple majors since Maria Sharapova won her second Grand Slam title aged 19 at the 2006 US Open.

Swiatek’s latest triumph is her sixth title of the year, all coming in a row during her winning streak (following Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart and Rome). She is the first player to win six titles in a row since Justine Henin in 2007 and 2008.

On the other hand, Gauff, the third-youngest player to reach a Grand Slam singles final this century at 18 years and 84 days old, made a valiant effort in her first major final, collecting enough games to just surpass that average. However, Swiatek was too tough at key moments, converting five of 10 break points and claiming 60 percent of points off of Gauff’s second service.

Swiatek cracked the match open after a lengthy third game when she converted her fifth breakpoint to take a double-break lead for 3-0. At 5-1, a stirring backhand return winner forced an error from Gauff, giving Swiatek her third break of the day and a one-set lead.

Gauff created some intrigue right away in the second set, drawing errors from the top seed as she earned her only break of the match en route to 2-0. However, Swiatek regrouped, finding sterling returns to get back on track and win the next five games successively.

Gauff gritted out a tough hold for 5-3, forcing Swiatek to serve for the championship, but the World No 1 was up to the task, as she has been all season. On her first championship point, Gauff sent a service return long, and Swiatek grasped her second major trophy.

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World No.1 Iga withdraws from Madrid Open

By winning Indian Wells and Miami back-to-back in March, Swiatek became the fourth and youngest woman to win the Sunshine Double…reports Asian Lite News

World No.1 Iga Swiatek has withdrawn from the Madrid Open 2022 on Wednesday, citing a right shoulder injury.

“We just thought that this is the best decision for me to recover properly because I didn’t really have time to recover after all these tournaments. After each of them I had like two days to chill out and then I had to come back to work and adjust to so many different things in every place Basically, it’s not like we have some drama because everything is okay,” Swiatek told reporters.

“You can see in Stuttgart that basically I’m doing fine. So basically, right now I feel like this is the best decision for us to get ready for Rome and have the peak of my form in Roland Garros,” she added.

The 20-year-old Polish star is riding a 23-match win streak after winning her fourth consecutive title at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. The win on indoor clay came after becoming the first player to win the first three WTA 1000 events of the season at the Qatar Total Open, BNP Paribas Open, and Miami Open.

By winning Indian Wells and Miami back-to-back in March, Swiatek became the fourth and youngest woman to win the Sunshine Double.

Set to play as the top seed in Madrid, Swiatek was due to open her tournament on Friday against a qualifier. The next player to be seeded, Leylah Fernandez, will move to Swiatek’s place at the top of the draw.

“I wanted to play it really badly, honestly,” Swiatek said.

“But I’m pretty happy that my team sometimes is also taking a lot of responsibility. I trust in them and I know that they’re going to make the right decisions because I’ve never had a situation, in terms of planning and in terms of looking more to the future and not what’s going on right now, I’ve never had a situation when their decision was wrong.

“So basically I trust them completely and I feel like just a couple of days off and then having time to actually practice a little bit more and focus on the technical stuff is going to do me only good,” she said.

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