Iga Swiatek set and equalled a pair of records that illustrate her outstanding consistency with her opening victory at the Dubai Championships.<\/p>\n
The world No 2 steamrolled two-time Australian Open winner Victoria Azarenka in her first match at the WTA 1000 event after a lengthy rain delay.<\/p>\n
Swiatek<\/a> broke the 35-year-old Belarusian six times and lost serve only once in a contest lasting an hour and 13 minutes.<\/p>\n The five-time major champion has improved her record against Azarenka, a former world No 1 who is currently ranked 34th, to 4-1.<\/p>\n In an on-court interview, Swiatek paid tribute to Azarenka\u2019s career.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s a legend. I have so much respect for her,\u201d she said. \u201cHer career is outstanding and she\u2019s still playing super good, so I just wanted to be ready.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we played couple of times, so I was aware of how she plays, but yeah, I was ready for everything. I\u2019m happy that I was solid and just focused and in the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n WTA world No 1 race: Can Iga Swiatek overtake Aryna Sabalenka after Dubai?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Elena Rybakina opens up about friends on tour as she addresses support over Stefano Vukov ban<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Asked what she did during the rain delay, Swiatek said: \u201cI just read a book. I got a quick nap. I started doing some legos. Then unfortunately I had to go and play\u2026 so legos had to wait (smiling).\u201d<\/p>\n Swiatek now holds the highest win rate of any player in opening matches at WTA 1000 tournaments (90.9%) since the format was introduced in 2009. Her last loss in an opening WTA 1000 match was a defeat to Ons Jabeur at the 2022 Cincinnati Open.<\/p>\n The 23-year-old has won her first match at 51 consecutive tournaments, which makes her\u00a0only the second woman this century after Kim Clijsters to accomplish this.<\/p>\n Swiatek, who is a 10-time WTA 1000 titlist, is aiming to win the Dubai Championships for the first time. She was a runner-up at the tournament in 2023 and a semi-finalist last year.<\/p>\n READ NEXT:\u00a0WTA Rankings: Aryna Sabalenka widens gap to Iga Swiatek; Amanda Anisimova\u2019s milestone, Naomi Osaka -10<\/a> The post Iga Swiatek sets WTA 1000 record and matches Kim Clijsters feat with Dubai demolition<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Iga Swiatek set and equalled a pair of records that illustrate her outstanding consistency with her opening victory at the Dubai Championships. The world No 2 steamrolled two-time Australian Open winner Victoria Azarenka in her first match at the WTA 1000 event after a lengthy rain delay. Swiatek broke the 35-year-old Belarusian six times and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA Tennis News<\/h2>\n
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