By Richard Pagliaro | @TennisNow | Thursday, February 20, 2025
Photo credit: Robert Prange/Getty
Iga Swiatek was squeezed in desert dust today.
Seventeen-year-old phenom Mirra Andreeva slashed 10 aces and surged through the final five games stunning the second-seeded Swiatek 6-3, 6-3 charging into her maiden WTA 1000 semifinal at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
MORE: Andreeva Sweeps Swiatek in Dubai
The loss comes a week after unseeded Jelena Ostapenko stomped Swiatek 6-3, 6-1 in the Doha semifinals snapping her 15-match winning streak and three-year reign as Doha champion.
Asked to assess the toll of playing back-to-back WTA 1000 tournaments, Swiatek said the physical demands and court adjustments required mean upsets like Andreeva’s or WTA ace leader Clara Tauson toppling world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka yesterday do not surprise her.
The reigning Roland Garros champion suggested if the calendar does not change, we will see more upsets at the 1000 level.
“For sure it’s a calendar thing. We’re not going to be able to be consistent for many years playing week-by-week,” Swiatek told the media in Dubai. “Also it’s not like some time ago that outside of top-20 players, they were just getting destroyed more.
“Now anybody can win these tournaments. It is like that since a couple of years.
“But I feel like the calendar is not helping. Again, we need to switch continents, we need to switch surfaces, we need to switch the balls – it’s not easy, I’m not surprised.”
Working with coach Wim Fissette, Swiatek has tried to use her speed and spins to extend points and thwart big hitters. However, in back-to-back defeats to Andreeva and Ostapenko, Swiatek was repeatedly burned by the down the line drive and struggled to stall her slide in both matches.
One of the game’s premier returners, Swiatek was aced 10 times today by Andreeva, who won 12 of her last 13 service points closing out a one hour, 36-minute triumph.
World No. 2 Swiatek, who dropped a dramatic third-set tiebreaker thriller to Madison Keys in last month’s Australian Open semifinals, said she traces today’s loss to Andreeva to a lack of practice between Melbourne Park and the Desert Swing.
“Honestly, I’m not that direct usually, but I would blame this performance on the lack of practice before because I didn’t have time,” Swiatek told the media in Dubai. “I’m not happy with the results. I feel like I under-performed.
“I need to talk with my team a bit and plan the next weeks a bit differently because I haven’t had much time to practice before these tournaments.”
