Picture: Salim Matramkot / The Peninsula
Poland’s Iga Swiatek is this year's Qatar TotalEnergies Open champion.
The World No. 8 yesterday cruised past Anett Kontaveit of Estonia 6-2, 6-0 at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex to win the 20th edition of the prestigious tournament.
In a commanding display of all-court mastery, Swiatek outclassed her opponent in yesterday's title-clash as the Polish star won the final 10 consecutive games of the match to seal the title-win in style.
The victory also secured the World No. 8 her first title of the season, also her second career WTA 1000 title as she ended Kontaveit's nine-match winning streak.
"I'm pretty happy that I was composed and I stayed in the same shape I was for the whole tournament, because playing finals is a different feeling," Swiatek said before receiving the iconic Golden Falcon Trophy from the President of the Qatar Tennis Squash and Badminton Federation President Nasser bin Ghanim Al Khelaifi yesterday.
"I knew that Anett is going to play well, because she's shown consistency throughout the whole six months, I would say. I needed to put pressure on her, and I'm pretty happy that I did that well today.
"It's so nice to have these kind of matches where you don't actually have problems with keeping the pace and with staying aggressive, because right now I'm a more aggressive player, and I really love it, because it's giving me a lot of confidence on and off court. It's just making sometimes life on court easier," Swiatek who now has four WTA singles titles under her name, said.
"I wanted to thank tournament director Saad (Al Mohannadi) and WTA for all this stuff that made this tournament possible. Because, yeah, it's been great. I loved it here," the victorious Swiatek said before the presentation ceremony which was also attended by Matthieu Bouyer. Managing Director TotalEnergies E&P Qatar and TotalEnergies Country Chair in Qatar.
"This was my second time (at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open). But I'm always going to remember those memories. I wanted to thank my sponsors as well because they're giving me safety and I feel really comfortable working with them. So thank you all the guys at home. Thank you. The support that I got for a week was amazing. And it's even though I'm on tour for like three years now, it's still surprising to me how many Polish people come to watch," the 20-year-old said.
Prior to yesterday's final, Swiatek and Kontaveit had a 50-50 record from their previous meet-ups, making the title clash look more like a battle between equal opponents.
Kontaveit came into the match having reached more finals and won more matches than anyone on tour since the start of 2021 . The Doha final was her ninth during that stretch, and she has prevailed in 61 matches within that period.
However, Swiatek showed her prowess right from the beginning of the all-important match.
She did not to fall into any of Kontaveit's traps on the day, winning a staggering 66 percent of points returning the Kontaveit serve and saving six of the seven break points she faced (six of which came in the first set).
After falling behind an early break to Swiatek, Kontaveit looked to be back in the hunt to break back for 2-2. However she could not do much after that.
Swiatek quickly regained her break lead in the following game and then kept using aggressive returns to take control of the game. Serving for the set at 5-2, Swiatek calmly erased two break points before closing out the one-set lead. The second did not pose any threats to the Polish star.
Swiatek is now 3-2 against Kontaveit, and the Pole has won their last three meetings, including at Roland Garros and the US Open last season. Swiatek has now won three matches in a row against Top 10 opposition this week, improving to 8-7 overall against that cohort.
"Overall I'm very happy and feel like my game is moving in the right direction. I think the results have reflected that in the last few weeks. Very pleased with that," Konteveit said.
"Iga played a really, really good match. She put a lot of pressure on my serves. She was playing a really solid match. I think I was a little overwhelmed, maybe didn't deal with my emotions as well as I would have liked. I mean, Iga was just great today."
