World number two Iga Swiatek overcame a shaky start to
defeat Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova in straight sets in her opening
WTA Finals match in Cancun.
In Monday’s other clash, US Open champion Coco Gauff
opened her tournament with a 6-0, 6-1 drubbing of Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur. Polish
star Swiatek looked out of sorts in an error-strewn first set in which she
trailed 2-5 before roaring back to clinch a 7-6 (7/3), 6-0 victory.
The 22 years old four-time Grand Slam champion is
bidding to reclaim her world number one ranking from Aryna Sabalenka at this
week’s season-ending finals in Mexico.
However, that goal looked unlikely during a nervy
opening from Swiatek, who was broken in her first service game before seventh
seed Vondrousova held for a 2-0 lead.
Swiatek managed to claw the break back in the fourth
game to square the first set at 2-2 but then fell to pieces as Vondrousova
broke for a 3-2 lead and then held to go 4-2 up.
Another shaky service game from Swiatek ended in a
break of serve to leave Vondrousova in the driving seat at 5-2.
But Vondrousova’s game collapsed thereafter, and
Swiatek broke back twice in quick succession to level the set at 5-5 before
holding for 6-5.
Although Vondrousova steadied the ship to hold serve
and set up a tie break, it was only a temporary reprieve.
Swiatek quickly took control of the breaker and
clinched the set when Vondrousova double-faulted.
Vondrousova’s service game went into meltdown in the
second set, with Swiatek breaking her three times in a row.
Another Vondrousova double-fault left Swiatek 5-0 up,
and the Pole sealed victory on her serve in the final game.
“In the first part of the match I wasn’t feeling like
I was playing bad,” Swiatek said.
“I just felt like I was making mistakes on the last
shots within the rally. I felt there was room for improvement but I didn’t need
to change a lot.
“So I just tried to be more precise, not play risky.”
The 19-year-old Gauff raced through the first set
against Jabeur to win 6-0 in just 23 minutes and then shrugged off a lengthy
rain delay to take the second set 6-1 for a convincing win.
“Ons is a great player, so I felt really unsteady the
whole match even though it didn’t look like that,” Gauff said.
“But I’m just happy to finally get a win here in this
event.”
The WTA Finals sees eight players divided into two
groups of four playing in a round-robin first phase, with the top two in each
group advancing to the semi-finals on Saturday.
Agencies
