Izuchukwu OkosiIga Swiatek began her Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship campaign with an impressive 6-4,6-4 win over American sensation, Sloane Stephens Tuesday night.
Still basking in the euphoria of her four wins enroute to winning the Qatar TotalEnergies Open title last week, the world number 1 women’s tennis star needed close to 120 minutes (1 hour, 57 minutes) to extend her unbeaten run in the Middle East this year to five in her return to Dubai after a runner-up finish to Barbora Krejcikova in 2023.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelSwiatek’s victory over the American teenager was an improved to 3-0 in her career against the 2017 US Open champion, having not lost a set in that period.
She was down a break three times in the first set — at 2-1, 3-2 and 4-3 but won three straight games (and 12 of the last 14 points) to avoid dropping a set to Stephens for the first time.
Swiatek is also bidding for her eighth career WTA 1000 title this week in Dubai and has thus won 23 of her last 24 matches dating back to last year’s US Open.
The only loss she recorded came in January in the third round of the Australian Open to Czech teenager Linda Noskova.
The top-seeded Swiatek clinched her third consecutive Doha title on Saturday and had a first round bye in this event.
“We had a lot of tight games. I really needed to perform a little bit better in those important moments because I couldn’t convert some break points. But I’m happy that at the end I did,” said Swiatek, who takes on two-time Dubai champion Elina Svitolina in the last-16.
“Yeah, it wasn’t easy. It’s nice that I played even a longer match here so I could adjust to the surface.”
Meanwhile, second seed Sabalenka fell 6-7 (5/7), 6-3, 6-0 to familiar Yelena Vekic in her first appearance since she successfully defended her title at the Australian Open last month.
Sabalenka let down her guard and lost her 7-6, 2-0 lead and also lost the last nine games of the clash to succumb to her Croatian opponent in two hours and 22 minutes.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
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