WTA Finals Day 2 recap: Iga Swiatek storms back, Gauff dominates Jabeur

The round-robin WTA Finals continued on Monday with two matches. One featured second-seed Iga Swiatek against seventh-seed Marketa Vondrousova while the other had third-seed Coco Gauff facing off against sixth-seed Ons Jabeur. Neither second set was close, but each match began completely differently.

In Iga Swiatek’s match, she fell 2-5 down to the hard-hitting Vondrousova. Swiatek has one of the best and most consistent forehands in tennis, but she was missing to begin the match. She also couldn’t seem to win her service games as she lost two in the first set.

Iga Swiatek told reporters after the match that she didn’t think she was playing that badly to begin the match. Said the second-ranked Pole, “I just felt like I was making mistakes on the last shots within the rally.” Of course, Vondrousova’s serve began to fail her at the same time.

Iga Swiatek comes back strong and Coco Gauff destroys on day 2 of the WTA Finals

The Czech finished with zero aces but five double faults. She won just 14 of 31 first serves points, and you can be pretty sure that if a player has that kind of statistic at the end of a match, they likely didn’t win.

After being down 2-5 and getting the first set to a tie-break where she lost the first two points before winning the next seven of eight, Iga Swiatek whitewashed Vondrousova in the second set to win the match 7-6(3) 6-0. It was the 20th time this year Swiatek had won a set 6-0, the second straight year she has won as many sets when she blanked the opponent.

The other match of the day wasn’t ever close. Coco Gauff defeated Ons Jabeur 6-0 6-1 in an unexpected drubbing. Gauff was efficient with her serve, but she controlled Jabeur’s service game. The American took 24 of a possible 39 serve points from the Tunisian.

In winning the match, the 19-year-old Gauff became the first teenager to win a match at the WTA Finals since Carolina Wozniacki did so in 2009. And she became the first American teenager to win a match at the Finals since Venus Williams in 1999. Gauff and Swiatek could face each other on Wednesday in what would be must-watch tennis.