Adelaide International: Iga Swiatek tops Belinda Bencic to win 2nd WTA title

Iga Swiatek defeated Belinda Bencic 6-2, 6-2 to win the Adelaide International title on Saturday. This is the Pole’s second career title, after her first coming at the 2020 French Open.

The fifth seed put up a strong showing from start to finish to which her second-seeded opponent had no answers. Swiatek won 20 out of the 22 first-serve points she put in play, hitting 22 winners and just six unforced errors. In comparison, Bencic, who was vying for her fifth career title, had an error-riddled game and finished with nine winners and 16 unforced errors. The Swiss was also let down by eight double faults.

After the match, speaking about her performance, Bencic said, “Mentally, I felt like today I was not in the same state, kind of vision that I had yesterday. I felt (a) little bit off. I was struggling with her game (a) little bit. I never knew where she's going to play. She played, yeah, like it was overwhelming for me.”

The match lasted merely 62 minutes and featured four breaks of serve – all on Bencic’s serve.  Swiatek, on her part, finished with no break points. For the match, Swiatek finished with 59 points to Bencic’s 34.

Adelaide International: Iga Swiatek's at it again

As with her first title, this time around, too, Swiatek didn’t drop a single set across the tournament. Her win against Bencic was also her seventh win against a top-20 player. Following the win, the 19-year-old will have a new career-high at no. 15 in the WTA ranking when they are updated on Monday, 1st March 2021. 

Iga Swiatek also confirmed that she wouldn’t be travelling to play the Qatar Total Open in Doha but will be playing the Dubai Duty-Free Tennis Championships instead. “Yesterday we decided after the match that we're going to withdraw from Doha because of some intense weeks here. I don't want to have injury or anything. I want my body to rest properly,” Swiatek said in her post-match press conference.

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/3b15F4O