Porsche Tennis Grand Prix: Iga Swiatek has to do a lot against Raducanu
The world number one, Iga Swiatek , reached the semi-finals at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix 2022 - but her opponent Emma Raducanu put up a strong fight.
by Florian Goosman from Stuttgart
last edit: Apr 22, 2022, 09:37 pm
Iga Swiatek is in the semi-finals of the WTA 500 tournament in Stuttgart: But she had to fight more against US Open winner Emma Raducanu than many expected - 6: 4, 6: 4 in the end, and luck also played a part helped for the Pole.
The starting position was definitely a special one: Raducanu is the reigning US Open winner, but her game against Swiatek was her first ever against a top 10 player: Belinda Bencic was number 12 on the way to the US Open title and Maria Sakkari as number 18 has been the measure of all things.
And Raducanu was strong against Swiatek! It's also amazing because she hadn't played a match on sand in her active career until the Billie Jean King duel last weekend. She countered Swiatek's high-speed topspin well and rarely let herself be pushed out of place. However, Swiatek once again managed to get an extremely good length in her shots in the important situations. At the start of the second set, Raducanu required lower back surgery, including time off the field, but she didn't really show the problem.
In the end, the Briton could have done even more: With the score at 6: 4, 5: 4, Swiatek had to survive a 15:40, hitting a second serve right on the line (the ball also bounced). Shortly afterwards she made the victory clear, the 21st in a row, by the way.
Iga Swiatek still wants to get to know Stuttgarter Sand
After her victory, Swiatek was not even angry about the - by her standards - long match, on the contrary: she had to get to know the place in Stuttgart better, the special sand-in-the-hall situation, and the longer she was up stand in place, all the better. She won her opening game against Eva Lys on Wednesday 6-1, 6-1.
Good for Swiatek in this respect: She can play again on Saturday, then in the semifinals against Liudmila Samsonova.