By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
Former world no. 1 female tennis player Iga Swiatek is yet to drop a single set in the ongoing Australian Open Grand Slam tournament.
During her first two matches in Melbourne Park, the Polish ace swept all of her opponents, blanking Czech Katerina Siniakova in the first round- 6.3, 6.4- followed by a demolition exhibition on Rebecca Sramkova of Slovakia- 6.0, 6.2- in the following stage.
After a string of heartbreaks in the past Grand Slam events last year, Swiatek is eager to kick off 2025 with a bang and end her slump at the Australian Open where she failed to nab a single golden trophy.
Swiatek was in the zone in the first week of the tournament, dominating Siniakova in all facets during their first-round matchup.
Not known as a comfortable hard court player who prefers the clay court, Swiatek has yet to change the narrative and proved her doubters wrong with a much-improved net game.
Against the Czech, Swiatek tallied four net smashes, a result of her off-season training in manning the no-man’s land.
Her baseline down-the-line forehands were still top-notch, but her deeper bag in the net wowed the crowd in attendance, backstopped by her reflexes despite receiving Siniakova’s heavy hits.
Swiatek continued her versatile performance and capped off the win over Siniakova with a well-placed lob shot that kissed the left baseline.
After passing her first test with flying colors, Swiatek set up a second-round encounter with the defensive-minded Slovakian netter.
Despite the hard counters Sramkova had to every backhand slice Swiatek fired, the higher-ranked stalwart still won most of the exchanges as her power and the amount of top-spin applied proved to be too much.
Swiatek silenced the Slovakian supporters early in the first set after sweeping her while obtaining three early break points, before pulling away in the following set to extend her set streak to four consecutive wins.
After taking care of her business in the first two rounds, Swiatek is all eyes on the third round when she challenges former Grand Slam queen Emma Raducanu in a highly-anticipated Australian Open showdown.
