WTA Finals Daily Preview: Iga Swiatek Plays Jessica Pegula in the Championship Match - UBITENNIS

WTA Finals Daily Preview: Iga Swiatek Plays Jessica Pegula in the Championship Match

By Matthew Marolf
5 Min Read

It’s a unique Championship Monday in Cancun, with the singles and doubles champions to be decided.

The 2023 season started 10 months ago with a notable upset on the women’s side of the inaugural United Cup in Australia.  In the semifinals of that team event, after losing to Iga Swiatek four times in 2022, Jessica Pegula defeated her by a dominant score of 6-2, 6-2.  Will Pegula upset Swiatek again on Monday, and win the biggest title of her career?  Or will Swiatek prevail, and take the year-end No.1 ranking away from Aryna Sabalenka on the last day of the WTA season?


Jessica Pegula (5) vs. Iga Swiatek (2) – 4:30pm local time in Cancun

These have definitively been the best two players of the extended week, both with 4-0 records, and both claiming all eight sets they’ve contested.  Swiatek is now 67-11 on the season, with five titles (Doha, Stuttgart, Roland Garros, Warsaw, Beijing).  She’s currently on a 10-match hard court winning streak, and is looking to win this event for the first time in her third appearance.  After knocking Sabalenka out of the tournament on Sunday, Iga can overtake Aryna as the year-end No.1 with a win on Monday.

Pegula is now 59-17 this season, with two singles titles (Montreal, Seoul), two doubles titles with Coco Gauff (Doha, Miami), and a team title (United Cup).  She’s on a nine-match hard court win streak of her own, and is looking for her biggest career title in her second appearance, just a year after she went 0-6 in this event across singles and doubles.  With a win on Monday, Jess would move up from No.5 to No.4 in the rankings, and ahead of Elena Rybakina, which could have considerable seeding implications for January’s Australian Open.

Swiatek leads their head-to-head 5-3.  Since the aforementioned United Cup match, they’ve split two meetings this season.  In the final of Doha, Iga crushed Jess 6-3, 6-0.  But in the semifinals of Montreal, Pegula prevailed 6-4 in the third.

The first set will be extremely crucial for both players on Monday, as these are the two best frontrunners the WTA has to offer.  Amazingly, Pegula is 51-0 this season when winning the first set.  Meanwhile, as per Tennis Abstract, Swiatek is 60-1 this season when winning the first set, with her only loss coming against Jelena Ostapenko as the US Open.

Both players will certainly be feeling plenty of pressure on Monday, with a lot on the line for both.  It’s been a mentally-trying week for all the players at this event, as the weather conditions and bad court quality have been quite frustrating.  As great as both have performed to this stage, Pegula’s been just a bit steadier, with Swiatek suffering a few hiccups along the way.  And Iga has just a little bit more on the line than Jess.  This tournament has provided an assortment of different champions across the past decade, with a lot of surprising results.  And while this wouldn’t be the biggest shocker the WTA Finals has ever seen, I’m picking Pegula to end her tennis year the same way she started it: by defeating Iga Swiatek.


Other Notable Matches on Monday:

Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Ellen Perez (8) vs. Laura Siegemund and Vera Zvonareva (6) – This is the doubles championship match, to be played at 1:30pm local time.  Melichar-Martinez and Perez are playing for the biggest titles of their careers, and are trying to overcome some significant scar tissue, as they’ve lost seven of their last eight finals as a team.  Siegemund and Zvonareva are the 2020 US Open champions, and won three titles this season.  Zvonareva is the only player with previous experience at the WTA Finals, as she qualified five times in singles, reaching the 2008 final, and also qualified in doubles in 2005, reaching the semifinals.

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