Eighth seed Karolina Pliskova beat Tereza Martincova 6-3, 6-3 in the battle of Czechs and Iga Swiatek brushed aside an error-prone Irina-Camelia Begu 6-1, 6-0 to move into the last-16 at Wimbledon on Friday.
Swiatek, the tournament’s seventh seed had only won one match on grass in her career before this competition, but she required only 55 minutes on Friday to advance to the second week. In her only previous outing at All England Club in 2019, she was eliminated in the first round.
Swiatek won 86% of points on her first serve against Begu and had only six unforced errors compared to 25 for the Romanian. The Swiatek swept away the lingering embers of Begu’s fight to romp into the next round in the second set which was even more one-sided.
Pliskova, the former world number one lost at the first hurdle at the Wimbledon warm-up tournaments in Berlin and Eastbourne last month, but the 29-year-old is yet to drop a set. Pliskova smashed 30 winners despite making 36 unforced errors and nine double faults against her compatriot, who struggled with her first serve and only converted one break point opportunity.
In the following round, Pliskova will face either American Sloane Stephens or Russian wildcard Liudmila Samsonova, who has reached the quarterfinals of every Grand Slam except Wimbledon.
