Swiatek beats Azarenka for 25th straight win

ROME, May 12, (AP): Top-ranked Iga Swiatek was tested before pulling out a 6-4, 6-1 victory over former No. 1 Victoria Azarenka to reach the Italian Open quarterfinals on Thursday and extend her winning streak to 25 matches.

Azarenka took a 3-0 lead before Swiatek won five straight games in a grueling first set that lasted 1 hour, 20 minutes.

Fellow top-ranked player Novak Djokovic, by contrast, faced much less resistance in a 6-2, 6-2 win over Stan Wawrinka, who was playing only his second tournament after undergoing two surgeries on his left foot.

At 1 hour, 14 minutes, Djokovic finished his match off in less time than the first set between Swiatek and Azarenka.

Djokovic, a five-time champion in Rome, will next play Felix Auger-Aliassime, who ended the run of American qualifier Marcos Giron with a 6-3, 6-2 victory. It will be the first meeting between Djokovic and Auger-Aliassime.

Later, 10-time Rome champion Rafael Nadal was playing Denis Shapovalov.

Swiatek is attempting to win her fifth straight tournament and defend her title in Rome.

The last player to win more consecutive matches was Serena Williams, who had a streak of 27 in a row over 2014 and 2015.

Swiatek’s run makes her a favorite to win a second French Open when the year’s second Grand Slam gets underway in 10 days. When Swiatek won at Roland Garros in 2020 she was ranked No. 54 - making her the lowest-ranked woman to win the Paris major in the Open era.

In a sign of how challenging it was for Swiatek to hold serve on the red clay court at the Foro Italico, she played more than twice as many points on her serve than Azarenka did - 98 to 47.

Azarenka was rattled when a spectator entered the front row of the mostly empty VIP section just behind her as she was facing a break point late in the first set. When she then double-faulted to hand Swiatek control of the set, she slammed her racket in frustration and complained to the chair umpire about the mid-game interruption.

Swiatek will next face 2019 U.S. Open champion Bianca Andreescu, who eliminated Croatian qualifier Petra Martic 6-4, 6-4.

The only previous meeting in singles between Swiatek and Andreescu came in a 2016 junior Fed Cup match between Poland and Canada, which Swiatek won in three sets.

In other matches, third-seeded Aryna Sabalenka beat Madrid Open finalist Jessica Pegula 6-1, 6-4 and will next play Amanda Anisimova, who eliminated Danielle Collins 6-2, 6-2.