Iga Swiatek sweeps to another Stuttgart title
World No 1 Iga Swiatek successfully defended her Porsche Tennis Grand Prix title on Sunday, defeating No 2 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 6-4.
Sabalenka has now fallen at the final hurdle at the last three Porsche Tennis Grand Prix events.
Swiatek captured her 13th career singles title after the 1-hour, 50-minute hard-hitting battle which she was delighted to shade.
The rankings queen knew that she would have to bring her A-game to avoid becoming another victim of Sabalenka’s amazing 2023 form.
In taking the title, Swiatek maintained her undefeated career record at in Stuttgart and improved to 13-3 in WTA singles finals overall.
Swiatek has also improved to a 5-2 win-loss record against Sabalenka in a rivalry that already promises to be one of the most intense in women’s tennis.
“I wanted to win really, really hard, but I knew that I can’t really focus on that and just I have to keep doing my job as I did on previous matches,” Swiatek said after claiming the 13th title of her career.
“I’m pretty happy that I could kind of have good mentality and just focus on what I want to do tennis-wise.”
Swiatek has now tied Sabalenka and Belinda Bencic for the most titles won this season, joining the pair as the only players on the WTA Tour to have notched multiple title wins.
Her triumph over Sabalenka gave her the 20th win of her season so far, meanwhile the Belarusian remains the WTA Tour’s wins leader having reached four championship matches already this term.
Swiatek has now achieved the feat of defending a WTA Tour titles on three separate occasions. She also defended her Doha title earlier this season and will have more to defend in the coming month in both Rome and Paris.
The Porsche Grand Prix final was the first on the WTA Tour to feature the top two-ranked players since world No 2 Caroline Wozniacki beat No 1 Simona Halep at the 2018 Australian Open.
Australian Open champion Sabalenka has retained her position as No 1 in the Race to the WTA Finals as arguably the most consistent player on the tour this season.
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In a quirk of her three losses in the Stuttgart final, Sabalenka has been beaten by the world No 1 on each visit to the Porsche Grand Prix championship match.
Both players made the most of their clean-striking, but it was Swiatek who displayed the better defensive skills and won the day.
