Iga Swiatek gave herself a shot at her first WTA Finals title and the year-end top ranking by eliminating No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 6-2 in a rain-suspended semifinal. The second-seeded Swiatek, a 22-year-old from Poland, will meet the fifth-seeded Jessica Pegula, a 29-year-old from the United States, on Monday for the trophy at the tour\u2019s season-ending championship. Both players went undefeated during round-robin play and have claimed all eight sets they\u2019ve played on the outdoor hard court in Cancun.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like it\u2019s still a long way,\u201d Swiatek said, \u201cbecause tomorrow\u2019s match should be like the toughest one.\u201d The final was supposed to be held Sunday, but a series of showers throughout the week continued Saturday when Pegula defeated Coco Gauff in the first semifinal. The second semifinal, Swiatek vs. Sabalenka, was stopped in the fourth game. Sabalenka surely spoke for everyone involved in the event when she said: \u201cThe first big question is: What are we doing here in the middle of the hurricane season?\u201d When they resumed Sunday, Swiatek quickly broke, then moved out to a 4-1 lead and never really looked back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely want to give credit to Iga. She adjusted really well in these conditions. And on this court, she was definitely way, way better than me,\u201d Sabalenka said. \u201cShe just started putting so much pressure on me.\u201d Swiatek consistently out-hit the powerful Sabalenka, the runner-up at last year\u2019s WTA Finals, from the baseline and wound up with more winners, 16-13, while also making fewer than half as many unforced errors, 23-10.<\/p>\n
Swiatek, a four-time Grand Slam champion, also saved both break points she faced and won three of Sabalenka\u2019s service games. Sabalenka, who won the Australian Open in January for her first major title, could have guaranteed herself remaining at No. 1 by beating Swiatek. Instead, a victory over Pegula would allow Swiatek to rise from No. 2 to regain the top spot she held from April 2022 to this September, when Sabalenka overtook her. Swiatek carries a 10-match winning streak into Monday; Pegula has won nine in a row. And they\u2019ve been dominating their opponents at a tournament for the top eight women in tennis: Swiatek has ceded only 19 games so far \u2013 the fewest en route to the final at the WTA Finals since Justine Henin dropped the same number in 2007 \u2013 and Pegula just 22.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, I feel like me and Jessie, we played really in a smart way, and we\u2019ve really kept calm. We\u2019re pretty focused and just taking the most we can from these matches and conditions,\u201d said Swiatek, who is 5-3 head-to-head against Pegula. \u201cSo I truly think that we kind of both deserve to be in a final.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iga Swiatek gave herself a shot at her first WTA Finals title and the year-end top ranking by eliminating No\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":9935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[2828,2830,2826,2827,2829,587,2824,2825],"class_list":["post-9934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-cancun","tag-finals","tag-iga-swiatek","tag-jessica-pegula","tag-mexico","tag-tennis","tag-wta"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}