Doha 1000: Classy Swiatek surges past Kontaveit to win her biggest hard-court title
There is no getting away from it: the fortnight of women’s tennis that has unfolded in the Persian Gulf tournaments in Dubai and Doha has produced some stunning tennis, some upsets, some surprises, and has had some serious impacts on the rankings.
Not that world No1 Ash Barty made the trip from Australia for the Middle Eastern stop-over, but the rest of the top 10—aside from an injured Karolina Pliskova—did take on the challenge of some of the hardest draws on the WTA tour.
In both cases, the Dubai 500 and this week’s Doha 1000—and the venues alternate the status of their events year by year—the unseeded players included the likes of Olympic champion Belinda Bencic, former world No1 Simona Halep, former Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin, and two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova. Indeed in last week’s Dubai draw, with the eight seeds all ranked in the top 10, the non-seeds also included Jelena Ostapenko and Victoria Azarenka.
So by the quarters, there was just one seed left standing, and Ons Jabeur was beaten to the semis by Halep. But one of the finest 500-level performances in living memory came from Ostapenko. She beat four former Major champions in a row, from Kenin to Iga Swiatek, to Kvitova and then Halep, three times from a set down, before sweeping to the title for the loss of four games against Veronika Kudermetova.
Then both finalists also contested the doubles title, and appropriately, perhaps, Kudermetova was rewarded for her singles triumphs over Azarenka and Garbine Muguruza with the doubles trophy.
It looked, through much of the Doha 1000 tournament, that both women would pick up titles again. Kudermetova reached the doubles final, again with Elise Mertens, only to finish runner-up in a deciding tie-break.
And Ostapenko extended her winning streak in Doha to a career best nine wins, and led the tour in 2022 with a 14-3 record. That run of nine began, it so happened, after her semi-final loss in St Petersburg to Anett Kontaveit, who would end the same run in Doha after Ostapenko continued her giant-killer ways into the semis via No2 seed Barbora Krejcikova and No5 seed Muguruza.
For if there was a woman on a hotter streak than Ostapenko this season—and last—it was Estonian Kontaveit. The No4 seed went on to win St Petersburg a fortnight ago, after winning four titles last season in the space of 10 weeks to reach the title match of the WTA Finals.
At the start of that run, last August, Kontaveit was ranked No30; Now she would make her top-five debut come Monday, win or lose.
Kontaveit, in fact, had won eight of her past nine semi-finals, and was up to 13 wins in 2022. But so was her final opponent, the former French Open and Rome 1000 champion, 20-year-old Swiatek.
The two women had played four times before, with Swiatek winning their last two meetings, and while the young Pole had not won a title so far in 2022, she had made her first semi run at last month’s Australian Open.
Certainly, this title bout promised much.
They began at a high tempo with high power, and it was Swiatek’s aggressive returns of serve that earned the first break chance. She converted, to the delight of the huge Polish support in Doha, for an early lead, 2-1.
The advantage was gone in the blink of an eye, though: Kontaveit went 0-40 against Swiatek, and got her break at the third attempt. Still the Pole stayed on the offensive, made a drive volley winner to open the next game, and she soon had more break chances. A pounding off-forehand winner, and she was in the lead again, 3-2.
This time, Swiatek resisted a break point to consolidate at 4-2, and her focused, smart tennis drew another error for a chance to break again. She could not convert, but her speed and defence in the next point, earned from an attacking lob, brought another opportunity, and at the third attempt, her searing return of serve broke through, 5-2.
The Pole fended off some intense rallies from Kontaveit to serve out the set, 6-2, in under 40 minutes.
Swiatek pulled Kontaveit from side to side, with swinging angled backhands to make the kill with a forehand. This was the kind of tennis she produced for that extraordinary French Open run as a teenager, and she quickly had another break to open the second set. A hold, and Swiatek broke again, now mixing in some low spinning returns to draw errors.
At the change of ends, Kontaveit was clearly emotional about her state of play, but to her credit, came out, 3-0 down, to produce some big baseline rallies and a break chance. But a huge angled backhand winner from the Pole snuffed it out: 4-0.
And so it would go, not another game lost since 2-2 in the first set. Swiatek served out to love to claim her second WTA1000 title, and the first on hard courts. And she has yet to come even close to losing a set in any of her four finals… a big time player who will return to her career-high No4 with this title.
She showed herself to be a big-time player in her words following the match, too. She admitted to feeling stressed before the match, and was clearly feeling emotional as she went through the usual acceptance speech motions. But she concluded:
“I want to show my support to all the people who are suffering in Ukraine. Seeing those images is really emotional for me. I wouldn’t even imagine stuff happening like that in the country next to me [Poland, which has opened its borders to the huge numbers of Ukrainians fleeing the attack of their country by Russia].
“I hope in the end it will be more safe. I also hope that even though this is a small event, looking at all the problems we have in the world, that sport is going to connect. Even though we have many things dividing us, sport is going to connect us, it’s going to bring us joy.
“Thank you all for coming tonight. I hope the Ukrainian people are going to [get] home.”
Big-time player, big-time ambassador for her sport—and only 20 years old. Brava.
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