“I don’t really know what happened with my game. I felt no control suddenly.
Swiatek had lost all three of her previous meetings against Ostapenko, but the pair had not played since February 2022 – after which the Pole embarked on a transformational 37-match winning run.
After falling an early break behind, Swiatek began to soak up the groundstrokes and quickly turned an entertaining set around.But she lost serve again early in the second set and this time was unable to rescue the situation.
Hurried by the pace of Ostapenko’s returns, Swiatek continued to make errors in the rallies and quickly became completely overwhelmed in an extraordinary deciding set.Ostapenko landed a flurry of winners as she moved 5-0 ahead and had the opportunity to inflict a rare 6-0 scoreline on Swiatek, who has become known herself for winning ‘bagels’ against her opponents.
While Swiatek avoided that fate by breaking serve, Ostapenko was not to be denied and fittingly secured victory with another inch-perfect forehand winner to seal a break to love.On closing out victory, she said: “I was just thinking I have to play until the very last point.”When I was 5-0 up she was missing more but I thought I was playing better and not giving her any chances.”
