{"id":66112,"date":"2025-05-01T16:25:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T16:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/66112\/"},"modified":"2025-05-01T16:25:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T16:25:10","slug":"gauff-dominates-swiatek-to-reach-madrid-final-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/66112\/","title":{"rendered":"Gauff dominates Swiatek to reach Madrid final for the first time"},"content":{"rendered":"

MADRID — Coco Gauff emphatically defeated Iga Swiatek for the first time on clay, 6-1, 6-1 Thursday to advance to the Mutua Madrid Open final.<\/p>\n

It was over in an astonishing 64 minutes and constituted a thoroughly complete breakthrough victory for the 21-year-old American who has now beaten Swiatek three straight times. At one time, Swiatek led the head-to-head 11-1 — and Gauff is the player she\u2019s beaten the most in her career.<\/p>\n

Gauff was very nearly flawless. After Swiatek won the match\u2019s opening game, Gauff reeled off an incredible 11 straight games, winning 12 of the last 13.<\/p>\n

Gauff lost only two points on her first serve and finished with six aces. She won 57 of 83 points and didn\u2019t face a break point. Gauff finished with 18 winners\u00a0and only four unforced errors. Swiatek was credited with seven winners and 21 unforced errors.<\/p>\n

The difference?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the mentality that I had the whole match,\u201d Gauff said in her on-court interview. \u201cI was aggressive and played with margin. Maybe it wasn\u2019t her best level.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it was just making sure my level stayed the same. In the second, I raised it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last time Swiatek dropped two or fewer games on any surface came in a 6-0, 6-2 Round-of-32 loss to Jelena Ostapenko in Birmingham.<\/p>\n

This one was, frankly, difficult to fathom.<\/p>\n

Fewest games won by Swiatek in clay-court career<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Chart:<\/p>\n

\n

Stats Perform\n <\/p>\n

Swiatek, a four-time champion at Roland Garros, has been nearly unbeatable on red clay. Only Steffi Graf (.750) has a higher win rate against WTA Top 10 opponents than Swiatek (.700) in the previous 35 years.<\/p>\n

It was another painfully slow start for Swiatek. In her opening match, she trailed teenager Alexandra Eala a set and a break before coming through. In Wednesday\u2019s quarterfinal against Madison Keys, Swiatek dropped the first set 6-0 before rallying to win in three.<\/p>\n

Here, she held serve to start the match — and lost six consecutive games. For the second straight day, Swiatek left the court after losing six straight games in the first set.<\/p>\n

It happened this way: Gauff scored the first break of serve in Swiatek\u2019s second service game. Coming forward, Swiatek couldn\u2019t land a backhand volley and it was 2-1, Gauff. And then it happened again when a loose backhand followed by an errant forehand gave Gauff a 4-1 lead. The third straight break, coming on Gauff\u2019s second set point — it was a lunging backhand that traveled wide — cost Swiatek the set.<\/p>\n

Gauff, whose serve has improved as the tournament progressed, won all nine of her first-serve points (four of them aces) and did not face a break point. She hit 11 winners, against only four unforced errors. Swiatek, on the other hand, had 13 unforced errors and only five winners.<\/p>\n

It continued in the second set. Gauff broke Swiatek for the fourth straight time (and eighth consecutive game overall) by lacing a forehand winner. Swiatek\u2019s frustration was evident when she was called for an uncharacteristic code violation for an audible obscenity.<\/p>\n

Trailing 5-0, Swiatek finally held serve but Gauff closed it out in a love game that ended with another unreturnable serve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID — Coco Gauff emphatically defeated Iga Swiatek for the first time on clay, 6-1, 6-1 Thursday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,661,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-66112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-text","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114433512112486999","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}