Swiatek races into Dubai semi-finals while double faults cost Gauff
Top-seeded Iga Swiatek breezed to a 6-3, 6-2 win over Zheng Qinwen to reach the semi-finals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships in the United Arab Emirates.
Swiatek saved all three break points she faced and broke Zheng three times to dispatch the Australian Open finalist in 86 minutes. She has won all six of their encounters.
“She has great power, great topspin. You have to be ready for that,” Swiatek said of Zheng. “She wants to really be proactive, so you have to keep up with the intensity. I’ve been doing that during our matches.”
Swiatek hit 17 winners to 10 unforced errors. Zheng had 19 and 18, respectively, however she landed only 48% of her first serves.
Swiatek will face Russian qualifier Anna Kalinskaya, who overcame a rough first set to earn a 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 win over the third seed Coco Gauff. Kalinskaya benefited from eight double faults from Gauff to win her match in 2 hours, 17 minutes.
After the match, Kalinskaya quickly turned her attention to Swiatek. “I played doubles against [Swiatek] a long time ago,” Kalinskaya said. “I’m super excited for [Friday]. I’ll try to recover. I’ve never played against her in singles.”
Also on Thursday, Sorana Cirstea of Romania dropped the first set and trailed 5-1 in the second before rallying for a 2-6, 7-6 (1), 6-2 win over Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic.
“This has to be the biggest comeback of my career,” Cirstea said after winning the match in 2 hours, 41 minutes. “To be honest, at a set and 5-1 [down], I wasn’t really thinking about winning any more. I was like, make it nicer for the public, try to make it a little bit longer, try to give them a little bit of nicer tennis. I still don’t know how I managed it.”
Cirstea fired aces to save two match points at 5-1 down in the second set. She saved another with a volley at 5-2. The seventh-seeded Vondrousova squandered six match points en route to defeat.
Cirstea will continue her quest for a title when she faces unseeded Italian Jasmine Paolini, who advanced via walkover after fourth-seeded Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan bowed out due to gastrointestinal illness.
Cameron Norrie remains on course to defend his Rio Open title after easing into the quarter-finals. The British No 1 won last year’s tournament in Brazil and his path to repeating his glory opened up earlier in the week when top seed Carlos Alcaraz withdrew because of injury. And he made light work of Chilean Tomas Barrios Vera on the clay, dropping two games in a 6-1, 6-1 victory.
Barrios Vera, ranked 120 in the world, was no match for the Norrie, who overcame an early exchange of breaks to reel off four successive games and win the first set. Another run of four games on the spin was enough to get the job done with little fuss to set up a quarter-final meeting with Thiago Seyboth Wild.
“I really played well and was accurate, I hit the lines and was able to control the games,” Norrie said on Sky Sports. “I enjoyed it, last night waiting around, it rained a lot and I had to come out and reset and I was able to do that so I was really pleased.
“I am going to keep focusing on myself and my level and I want to make sure I take care of my matches like that. It’s tough, it’s humid, there’s been a lot of rain and the clay is heavy. It’s not easy out here but I feel like I can play well when the matches go long.”
Meanwhile, Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis comfortably beat Dan Evans 6-4, 6-2 to advance to Mexico’s
ATP Los Cabos quarter-finals. The win, which took just over two hours, marks his second consecutive win against a British opponent. The Australian defeated world No 53, Jack Draper, earlier in the week.
Kokkinakis made it to his first tourlevel quarter-final since the beginning of 2023, securing a win with five aces compared to three for Evans. Evans hit three double faults during the match, while Kokkinakis had the better of the clutch moments, saving four out of the five break points against him. The loss also marks Evans’ third loss to the Australian.
In the next round, Kokkinakis will play world No 6, Alexander Zverev, and the top seed at Los Cabos.