DUBAI: Iga Swiatek avenged her defeat to Wimbledon’s Elina Svitolina last year with a 6-1 6-4 performance on Wednesday to reach the quarter-finals in Dubai.
The Polish world number one, who claimed a third straight Doha title on Saturday, needed an hour and 23 minutes to beat 20th-ranked Svitolina, who returned this week from a back injury suffered at the Australian Open last month.
“I really wanted to improve on yesterday,” said Swiatek, who had struggled in her opening match in Dubai against Sloane Stephens the night before.
“I’m happy I didn’t lose focus and I remembered what I had to do and it worked. So I was a little more calm than yesterday.”
Swiatek, runner-up in Dubai 12 months ago, now awaits the winner of a late clash between Zheng Qinwen and Anastasia Potapova.
Meanwhile, US Open champion Coco Gauff ended Karolina Pliskova’s 11-match winning streak with a hard-fought 2-6 6-4 6-3 win to reach her second consecutive quarter-final in Dubai.
Gauff had a lengthy altercation with head umpire Pierre Bacchi in the second set but was not derailed when she faced Anna Kalinskaya in the last eight years.
“It definitely felt like a good win,” Gauff said. “Hopefully I can continue to use that to build confidence before the end of this week.”
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Fourth seed Elena Rybakina was made to work for her 7-6 (7/5) 3-6 6-4 victory over Magdalena Frechova, who needed two hours and 40 minutes to overcome the well-prepared Polish qualifier.
Rybakina made it to the quarterfinals for the fifth time in six tournament appearances this season. The 2022 Wimbledon champion has claimed 10 wins from 11 matches in three different cities in the last 14 days – a run that included a title in Abu Dhabi and a runner-up finish in Doha.
“I’m happy that I’m still winning matches. But from the level I can see that obviously physically and everything is going down a bit. I don’t know how much I can push and how much I can recover in it.” half a day,” said Rybakina.
World No. 53 Frech led 5-3 in the opening set and 5-3 in the tie-break, but Rybakina erased both deficits to secure the first frame in 65 minutes.
Frechová did not dwell on missed opportunities and raced to a 3-0 lead in the second set. Rybakina saved a trio of set points while serving at 2-5, but the fourth seed was unable to stop Frech from securing the set and forcing a decider.
The pair were neck and neck in the final set, but it was Rybakina who pounced when a small window opened, breaking serve in the final game to book a quarter-final meeting with Jasmine Paolini.
Italy’s world number 26 Paolini claimed the 10th top 20 win of her career earlier on Center Court when she saw off eighth seed Maria Sakkari 6-4 6-2 in one hour and 21 minutes.
The win earned Paolini a spot in the WTA 1000 quarterfinals for just the second time she reached that stage last summer in Cincinnati.
“I feel really confident. I just don’t think about the position of the opponent. I just think about what I have to do on the court,” said Paolini, who knocked out 11th seed Beatriz Haddad Maia and former US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez in the opening two rounds in Dubai.
On Court 1, Jelena Ostapenko, already twice titled in 2024, lost 6-4 7-5 to Kalinskaya.
Russia’s Kalinskaya is enjoying a strong season so far, reaching her first Grand Slam quarter-final at the Australian Open last month and making her top 40 debut.
Ostapenko entered the meeting with Kalinskaya with a 16-3 win-loss record for the season, with all three defeats against Victoria Azarenka.
