The leader in the WTA rankings Iga Swiatek (Poland) qualified for the first time in the semifinals of the WTA 1000 Madrid Open tournament after defeating Petra Martic (Croatia) without any problems with 2-0 (6:0, 6:3). The Polish tennis player started very strongly against Petra Martic, who has so far eliminated the 11th-seeded and Roland Garros champion Barbora Krejcikova. But after only 69 minutes, the leader in the rankings was already in the semi-finals.
Her opponent will be the 24-year-old Russian tennis player Veronika Kudermetova, who is 12th-seeded and surprisingly eliminated last year’s finalist and 3rd-seeded Jessica Pegula (USA) by 2-1 (6:4, 0:6, 6:4) in 2 hours and 5 minutes.
“I like that I’m playing better and better day by day. It’s great because I didn’t expect at the beginning of the tournament that it would be possible. But I worked calmly and that feeling came today”, said Iga Swiatek, who already has two wins from two matches against Petra Martic. The first set lasted only 27 minutes, and in the second the Polish player needed only one break. And she made it 4:2 on the first try, then took her next two serves without much trouble.
For Veronika Kudermetova, the participation in the semifinals in Madrid can be called the biggest success of her career so far, as she has reached three quarterfinals at the WTA 1000 or higher level – all in 2022 in Indian Wells Open, Roland Garros and Guadalajara Open. This result now places her in the top 4 of such a tournament for the first time.
The Russian played a strange match, winning the first and third sets, while in the second she was literally just a body on the court. The first and third sets featured five breaks of serve each, with the quality of both returns seriously exceeding that of their first serves. Veronika Kudermetova made the first break in both sets, but both times she failed to hold it. Still, the last breaks were hers, which allowed her to take the pieces.
