By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Friday April 22, 2022
Iga Swiatek continues to run the table in 2022. The World No.1 stretched her winning streak to 21 victories - the tour's fifth-longest in the last 10 years - on Friday with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Emma Raducanu to reach the semifinals at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart.
Red-hot Swiatek has won her last 26 sets on the trot and improves to 30-3 on the season as she improved to 11-1 in WTA quarterfinals.
She will face Russia’s Liudmila Samsonova in the last four on the red clay in Stuttgart. Samsonova defeated 2017 champion Laura Siegemund 7-5, 6-3.
It was a solid test for the top-ranked Pole, as Raducanu, playing her first WTA main draw event on clay, acquitted herself nicely and pushed Swiatek in both sets, the contest lasting one hour and 45 minutes.
It was Raducanu’s first ever match against a Top-10 player. She fell behind by a break immediately in the opening set and never recovered, but did keep it close. In the second set Swiatek broke for 2-1 after an early trade of breaks and didn’t look back; but she did face adversity.
Swiatek saved a pair of break points to hold for 5-3 in set two, and then rescued another pair of break points while serving at 5-4, before she closed out the match on her second match point.
Earlier on Friday, third-seeded Aryna Sabalenka knocked off Anett Kontaveit 6-4, 3-6, 6-1 to set a semifinal with No.2-seeded Paula Badosa. Badosa defeated Ons Jabeur 7-6(9), 1-6, 6-3.
Here is the semifinal lineup in Stuttgart.