By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Wednesday May 3, 2023
Iga Swiatek dropped just three games as she rocketed past Petra Martic for her eighth straight clay-court win.
Photo Source: TTV
Iga Swiatek is closing in on her first Madrid title.
The World No.1 made another emphatic step in that direction on Wednesday evening in Madrid, pummeling Petra Martic, 6-0, 6-3, to reach the semifinals for the first time in the Spanish Capital.
Swiatek, who stretches her current winning streak to eight, will face Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova for a spot in the final on Friday.
Swiatek recorded her seventh six-love set of the season, and her 29th since the start of 2022. She improves to 24-4 overall on the season and 52-7 lifetime on clay.
After her victory, which took 70 minutes to achieve, the Pole said that she is adjusting well to the high-bouncing conditions in play at altitude in Madrid.
“As I said at the beginning every hour is important,” she said. “I already played a lot of hours here so I feel like I'm playing better and better every day, and this is pretty great because I didn't know if that's going to be possible at the beginning of the tournament.
“I was patient and I was hoping to get that feeling and today was for sure a good day.”
Swiatek is 3-0 lifetime against Kudermetova, and has dropped just two games against her in the pair’s last two meetings. Kudermetova defeated Jessica Pegula on Wednesday in Madrid, earning her seventh career Top 5 win.
Swiatek says she’s not thinking about the pair’s past – only the future.
For me, it doesn't really matter what our head to head is,” she said. “I'm just gonna focus on myself and what I want to do on court tactically. It's never easy to play a semifinal; in semifinals we have players who played already a great tournament, so I will just be ready and I'll recover well now.
“Tactically I'm gonna be ready because we played a couple of times, so I know her game well.