Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek claimed a Tour-leading 57th win of the season to lift the Korean Open title after outlasting Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova in a roller-coaster battle.
The world No.2 recovered from a slow start to edge out Alexandrova 1-6, 7-6 (7-3), 7-5 after more than two-and-a-half hours of play. Swiatek struggled with her serve early on, winning just nine out of 25 points during the opening set before finding some rhythm. Overall, she produced nine double faults and won just under half of her second service points.
Swiatek was pushed until the very end and was forced to battle back from a 1-3 deficit in the final set. She broke her opponent three times during their match, with one of those occurrences when the world No. 11 was serving to take the match into a decisive tiebreaker, which she was unable to do.
“I’m proud of this achievement today. It wasn’t the easiest day.” the Yohap News Agency quoted Swiatek as saying afterwards.
“I didn’t start the match playing well, so I really needed to dig out of a lot of trouble and Ekaterina was playing great. I just fought till the end and I kept hoping. And it was worth it because at the end I could break her serve and close it. And I’m super proud of the way I just stayed there and I was super patient.”
The 24-year-old is now 17-9 against top 20 players on the Tour since January and has won 14 out of 16 matches played since her Wimbledon triumph. It is the third title she has won this season after also winning at the Cincinnati Open.
Swiatek’s latest victory is more special given it was achieved in Seoul, the city where her father participated in the 1988 Olympic Games. Tomaz Swiatek competed in the men’s quadruple sculls, where Poland won the B final but finished seventh overall.
“I’m happy that I could win here because of the family history, and my dad couldn’t win the Olympics, but at least I won this tournament,” she said. “Hopefully, he’s going to come here next year to enjoy everything.”
It is the first title Swiatek has won in Asia since October 2023, after playing no tournaments in the region last year due to a failed drug test. She tested positive for the heart medication trimetazidine (TMZ) and accepted a one-month ban after an independent hearing concluded that the tennis star bore “no significant fault or negligence” and did not intentionally take trimetazidine. Furthermore, her level of fault was deemed to be at the ‘lowest end of the range.’
Swiatek’s next event is scheduled to be the China Open, which she won two years ago.
