World No.1 Iga Swiatek dropped just three games against No.2 seed Jessica Pegula on her way to defend her Qatar TotalEnergies Open title.
The defending champion beat the world No.4 Pegula in straight sets, 6-3, 6-0 in the Doha final.
The title marks the top seed’s first one of the season and the 12th one of her overall career. The Pole just dropped five games all week on her way to the title.
“I’m really happy that I could kind of find more balance, comparing to how I felt at the beginning of the season,” Swiatek said, post her win. “I think this tournament is going to give me a lot of confidence, but still, I want to take everything step by step. I’m just really happy that I could win this match today.”
Swiatek lost to Pegula earlier this year at United Cup but the world No.1 avenged that defeat here in Doha by defeating the American in a match that lasted for an hour and 9 minutes.
Iga’s title run at the previous edition marked the start of her record breaking 37-match winning streak that included her title winning run at the Roland Garros.
“Every game I was really focused, and that’s the thing I’m most happy about, because at the beginning of the season I felt like my mind was kind of flying away sometimes,” Swiatek said. “But here, the work we have put in with my coach on court and with Daria off the court, for sure, it just paid off, and I felt like everything is clicking.”
“I can use the wind properly”
While many players who played in Doha struggled with the windy conditions, Swiatek surprised everyone by not letting the wind make her lose control over her game. “Yesterday it kind of hit me that even though it’s windy, I can use the wind properly and kind of use my intuition to sometimes imagine that I should play shorter, or on the other hand, play with more topspin so the wind is going to kind of take this ball even further,” Iga said.
“So today I just kind of continued that, but I didn’t really want to overanalyze that, and I just kind of played how my intuition told me. It’s nice, because usually I’m basing everything on my tactics and on the technique that I’m working on. But here I felt like I could just reset that and play more freely without overthinking.”