Wimbledon: No. 1 Iga Swiatek wins for place in quarterfinals
WIMBLEDON, England –
Top-seeded Iga Swiatek saved two match points on Sunday to reach the quarterfinals of Wimbledon for the first time with a 6-7 (4), 7-6 (2), 6-3 victory over Belinda Bencic on Center Court.
Swiatek extended her undefeated streak to 14 matches, including claiming her fourth Grand Slam title at the French Open last month.
Swiatek has won three championships at Roland Garros and one at the US Open, but she had never progressed past the fourth round at the All England Club. Last year, she had snapped a 37-match winning streak in a third-round loss at Wimbledon.
So comfortable on the red clay of Paris, so capable on the hard courts in New York — and at the Australian Open, where she reached the semifinals — Swiatek just isn’t quite the same player on the used green grass at the third Grand Slam Tournament of the Year.
Against the great Bencic, the singles gold medalist at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Swiatek certainly had her chances of taking control much sooner than she did.
Six times in the first set she had a break point, but failed to cash in. Twice came when she was one point away from possession of the first set while leading 5–4, but after Swiatek also failed to convert, Bencic found himself in a tiebreak. and raced to a 6-1 lead before sealing it.
Swiatek went to the locker room after that set and immediately appeared to be back at her best, eventually breaking and eventually going up 3-1. But she let that advantage slip, dropping the next three games and suddenly having to clear that pair of match points while trailing 6-5.
Once past that important stretch, Swiatek set things straight in that tiebreaker. From 2-all, she took five consecutive points, the last of which was a double fault by Bencic, to send the match to a third set.
Bencic cried out after missing a forehand to hand over a break point, then double fouled for the 10th time to give Swiatek another 3-1 lead in the deciding set. Swiatek protected that margin this time, and 23 minutes later—about an hour after losing a point—she punched the air after delivering a cross-court forehand winner to end it.
