Iga Swiatek destroys another opponent, now in semis at Bad Homburg
By Lee Vowell
For a player who has greatly struggled on grass courts in her relatively short career, Iga Swiatek seems to be unstoppable at the Bad Homburg Open. Prior to Thursday, Swiatek had never made the quarterfinals at any grass tournament. Now she’s into the semis and by the looks of it will make the finals easily as well.
What changed? Maybe just confidence. Iga Swiatek, of course, can win majors on hard court and clay and has no concerns with those. She should know she’s the best player in the world. But from her history on grass, she probably felt closer to a qualifier instead of a potential champion.
That is until this week. Swiatek lost her first set of the tournament and since then, in six sets, has lost just 11 games. It’s almost like the proverbial light bulb went off and she’s like, “So that’s how you play on grass!” Or, Iga Swiatek, like she always does, just worked harder than most to figure things out.
Iga Swiatek seems like she’s figuring out how to win on grass courts
On Thursday, she defeated ninth-seeded Anna Blinkova 6-3 6-2. It didn’t help Blinkova that her first serve was monumentally bad. She did have 4 aces but 5 double-faults and she won just 47.7 percent of her first serves. That’s no way to win a tennis match.
Meanwhile, Swiatek won 60.9 percent of Blinkova’s second serves. Again, losing that much is no way to win a match if you are Blinkova or anyone else. Basically, the score of Iga Swiatek versus Anna Blinkova is misleading. Swiatek dominated even more than the score would imply.
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This leads me to the point of all this. if Iga Swiatek can win the Bad Homburg Open and gain her footing on grass courts, she definitely could win Wimbledon. And if she wins Wimbledon, and with four Grand Slam wins already and is just 22 years old, there is a very good chance she can catch up to the number of slams that Serena Williams acquired (23). But Swiatek first has to prove she can translate her Bad Homburg Open experience into Wimbledon success.