Iga Swiatek cruises past Jessica Pegula in straight sets to clinch second straight WTA Doha title in style

ByDan Quarrell

Published 18/02/2023 at 19:53 GMT

It has been another memorable and very impressive week for Iga Swiatek, who could potentially have kicked off another dominant run on the WTA Tour as she secured the WTA Doha title with a one-sided victory over Jessica Pegula in the showpiece final. Swiatek was utterly dominant in conceding just three games in the entire match as she defended the title she claimed last year.

Iga Swiatek was utterly dominant again as she stormed past Jessica Pegula in straight sets, 6-3 6-0, to clinch her second straight WTA Doha title in impressive fashion on Sunday.

In what was a perfect final between the top-seeded Pole and the second seed from the USA, Swiatek again demonstrated her class as she lost just three games in the entire match to clinch the trophy in style once again.

Remarkably, Swiatek won 73% of points returning Pegula's second serve in the match as she racked up a formidable six service breaks in taking the victory.

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The 21-year-old Pole, who dropped just five games all week, sealed her first WTA Tour title of the year and the 12th of her already mightily impressive career.

"I'm really happy that I could kind of find more balance, compared to how I felt at the beginning of the season," Swiatek said in her on-court interview.

"I think this tournament is going to give me a lot of confidence, but still, I want to take everything step by step. I'm just really happy that I could win this match today.

"Every game I was really focused, and that's the thing I'm most happy about because at the beginning of the season, I felt like my mind was kind of flying away sometimes.

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"But here, the work we have put in with my coach on court and with Daria off the court, for sure, it just paid off, and I felt like everything is clicking.

"Yesterday it kind of hit me that even though it's windy, I can use the wind properly and kind of use my intuition to sometimes imagine that I should play shorter, or on the other hand, play with more topspin so the wind is going to kind of take this ball even further," she continued.

"So today, I just kind of continued that, but I didn't really want to overanalyze that, and I just kind of played how my intuition told me. It's nice because usually, I'm basing everything on my tactics and on the technique that I'm working on. But here I felt like I could just reset that and play more freely without over-thinking."

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Swiatek's incredible 37-match winning streak, which famously culminated in her clinching her second Grand Slam singles title at Roland-Garros, began back in Doha. She will be hoping this provides similar momentum as she dives into the clay-court season ahead of the French Open.

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The 2023 Australian Open was live and the French Open will follow on discovery+, the Eurosport app and at eurosport.co.uk

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