Swiatek, the queen reaches Sakkari in the semifinals. Gauff eliminated

Luckily Caroline Garcia had to be Iga Swiatek’s toughest opponent in the group stage of the WTA Finals in Fort Worth, Texas. Let’s say that it was not like that, to be kind, given the Polish dominance over the French: a 6-3 6-2 without appeal, a match that practically did not take place and Iga who flies in the semifinals whistling. The truth is that in women’s tennis there is a dictator, who essentially loses very rarely and when it happens it is exclusively due to her own demerit, between physical and mental fatigue and inevitable empty passages, but what we are seeing in this 2022 by Swiatek after the retirement of another great champion, Ashleigh Barty, she is an absolute domination. And she is only 21 years old.

Match

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Returning to the match against Garcia, it was the exact opposite of what we have seen in many matches between the two, last in Warsaw at the end of July, when the French had managed to prevail. World number 1 in Texas was overwhelming: Caroline was blown away in both scoring and play, with the Pole dismantling her opponent’s tactics within minutes. A match that lasted until the 2-2 of the first set, when Iga started pushing the serve (especially on the second) and from there she took off, also because she managed to decode Garcia’s serve very well. Who did not play badly, she also tried to be aggressive and who knows, maybe if she managed to go immediately 3-1 in the first set (she had two chances), it would have gone differently, even if the superiority of the Pole in the rest of the game it was overflowing.

Leader

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Swiatek will therefore play its eleventh semifinal of the season on Sunday, out of 17 tournaments played, with a record of nine won and only two lost, both in January. She will do it as leader of her own group, given that Daria Kasatkina beat Cori Gauff (7-6 (6) 6-3) sanctioning the elimination of the American and winning the play-off against Garcia on Saturday. Gauff is the big disappointment of the tournament: there were high expectations for the 18-year-old heir of Serena Williams (so far very, very much on paper), but some bad days at the service and maybe a bit of tension played a really bad joke at Choirs.