Qatar Open: Another feather in Iga Swiatek's cap

Bengaluru/Doha, February 27: Iga Swiatek capped a dream run throughout the week in Doha by clinching the WTA 1000 Qatar TotalEnergies Open title.

In the final at the hard-courts of Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex on Saturday (February 26) night, Poland's Swiatek beat Estonia's Anett Kontaveit 6-2, 6-0 to clinch the falcon trophy.

For the records, it was Swiatek's maiden title of the season, her second WTA 1000 crown and fourth WTA singles title overall.

Qatar Open: Iga Swiatek crowned champion Qatar Open: Iga Swiatek crowned champion

The victory at the Qatari capital, also helped Swiatek improve her WTA head-to-head record over Kontaveit to 3-2.

Swiatek has now won three matches in a row against Top 10 opposition this week, improving to 8-7 overall.

Different feeling

"I'm pretty happy that I was composed and I stayed in the same shape I was for the whole tournament, because playing finals is a different feeling," Swiatek said in her on-court interview after her resounding victory.

"It's always a little bit more stress. "I knew that Anett is going to play well, because she's shown consistency throughout the whole six months, I would say. I needed to put pressure on her, and I'm pretty happy that I did that well today."

Steady progress

Swiatek has now racked up four WTA singles titles in her career, and it is her second WTA 1000 crown. Her previous WTA 1000 title came in Rome last year, where she dispatched Karolina Pliskova 6-0, 6-0 in the final.

Swiatek famously triumphed at the clay-court Grand Slam event at Roland Garros in 2020 for her first career title, but she now has just as many hard-court titles as clay-court titles in her career, with two apiece.

Kontaveit lauds Swiatek

Kontaveit came into the match having reached more finals and won more matches than anyone on tour since the start of 2021 - this was her ninth final during that stretch, and she has prevailed in 61 matches within that timeframe. But Swiatek refused to fall into any of Kontaveit's traps on the day, winning a staggering 66 per cent of points returning the Kontaveit serve and saving six of the seven break points she faced (six of which came in the first set).

"Overall I'm very happy and feel like my game is moving in the right direction. I think the results have reflected that in the last few weeks. Very pleased with that," Kontaveit said. "Iga played a really, really good match. She put a lot of pressure on my serves. She was playing a really solid match. I think I was a little overwhelmed, maybe didn't deal with my emotions as well as I would have liked. I mean, Iga was just great," the 26-year-old added.

Falcon trophy

As Swiatek held her falcon trophy aloft, it summed up an interesting tale of dominance especially in the title clashes.

The 20-year-old continued to dominate in finals once she gets to them. Since her only runner-up finish on WTA Tour, at Lugano in 2019, Swiatek has dropped a total of 11 games in the four finals she has won. Way to go champ! Mabrook Swiatek!

(With WTA inputs)