In the moments before she walked on to Dubai’s centre court for one of the biggest matches of her career, Anna Kalinskaya was calm.
“Hi,” she said, greeting a waiting mascot with a warm smile and a friendly wave. “How are you? Excited?”
Taking Kalinskaya’s outstretched hand, the beaming little girl replied that she was indeed excited: her mum and dad were going to see her on television. It was a charming exchange and, behind them, a boy assigned the task of walking on with Iga Swiatek looked on enviously.
It was not that the Polish world No 1 was unfriendly: she said hello, shook the child’s hand. But Swiatek was in match mode – headphones on, attending to her hydration, preparing her walk-on music. On familiar ground – Swiatek was playing her 13th WTA 1000 semi-final, Kalinskaya her first – the top seed was simply taking care of business.
Those moments were nonetheless indicative of the emotional temperature of an evening that would culminate with Kalinskaya, a 25-year-old qualifier ranked 40th in the world, handing Swiatek her first straight-sets defeat in almost a year. Kalinskaya was still smiling and chatting to her young charge as the pair made their way on to court, and nothing that happened in the extraordinary one hour and 41 minutes that followed seemed to alter the unflappable Russian’s mood. In contrast, Swiatek, focused and business-like from the outset, would become increasingly fraught and agitated.
After the disappointment of an early exit to Linda Noskova at the Australian Open, Swiatek has bounced back strongly over the Middle East swing. But for once, the Pole struggled to bear the weight of expectation lightly; struggled to keep her foot on the accelerator after establishing an early lead; struggled to maintain the steely composure that had carried her to seven straight victories. It resulted in a 6-4, 6-4 defeat, just the second Swiatek has suffered in 27 matches dating back to last October.
Gunning for a second straight WTA 1000 title that, following last week’s triumph at the Qatar Open, would have made her the first player to win the Gulf double since Justine Henin in 2007, Swiatek began the match in dominant form. Dictating from the baseline and forcing the play at the net as she repeatedly drew Kalinskaya wide on the backhand, forcing the qualifier to take one hand off the racket and thereby nullifying one of her chief weapons, the Pole established a 4-2 lead. But the 22-year-old found it increasingly difficult to maintain a balance between power and consistency. As her errors slowly mounted, so too did her irritation.
“I felt like I didn’t have power any more to give even more, which doesn’t happen often,” said Swiatek, who complained of a lack of “energy and intensity”.
“I just felt out of control a little bit because of that, because usually when I tell myself what to do I can improve my game, but today I was so out of power and tired that I just couldn’t.”
Early in the second set, that lack of control manifested itself in uncharacteristic fashion. Broken in the opening game, Swiatek’s deepening frustration was evident as Kalinskaya served to consolidate her advantage. She looked imploringly to her team after prodding a backhand long, then gestured to them in exasperation after slamming a mighty forehand winner. Nothing seemed to please her – least of all the missed return that followed, an error to which she responded by slamming her racket into the ground in frustration, breaking the frame and receiving a code violation for her troubles.
Through it all, her opponent remained serene. As Swiatek bounded out of her chair at the next changeover, Kalinskaya took her time, quietly composing herself before returning to the fray with a relaxed smile. She seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself – and why not? Having defeated a pair of top-10 players in Jelena Ostapenko and Coco Gauff in the previous two rounds, she had little to lose. Swiatek, meanwhile, had spent much of the previous 24 hours insisting that the outcome of a tournament at which she was the only seeded player remaining was not preordained.
“In the beginning of the second set I didn’t think too much,” said Kalinskaya. “I just had to play point by point. She’s a great player, so I had to stay calm and just follow the plan that I had in my mind. I had to stay aggressive and keep moving her.”
She succeeded admirably in those aims, coolly absorbing the disappointment of being denied two match points at 5-2 amid a late surge of aggression from Swiatek, then fending off two break points as she again served for victory two games later. On her first match point, Kalinskaya moved forward behind a thumping crosscourt forehand before slamming away a drive volley. Already projected to achieve a new career-high ranking of 24th on Monday, Kalinskaya will break into the top 20 if she can repeat her Australian Open victory over Italy’s Jasmine Paolini in Saturday’s final.
In the first semi-final, Paolini resisted another extraordinary comeback by Sorana Cirstea to reach her fifth career final 6-2, 7-6 (8-6). Cirstea fought back from a set and 5-1 down to defeat Marketa Vondrousova in the quarter-finals, and threatened to repeat that feat as she set about cancelling out a 5-2 second-set deficit. But Paolini clung on gamely, warding off six set points to join Kalinskaya in reaching a first WTA 1000 final.
“I played already with her two times, she’s playing really well when she’s little bit down in the score,” said Paolini. “She’s trying to hit more winners, to play faster.”
At least she will be well prepared for the final. Nobody at this tournament has played faster than Kalinskaya, whose fearless ball-striking and ability to inject sudden changes of pace has so proved irresistible. Paolini, denied a first grand slam quarter-final by Kalinskaya at the Australian Open, is all too aware of the challenge that awaits.
“If you want to beat her, you have to play deep and try to do not too many mistakes, but also try to hit winners, to hit the ball, to push her away from the court because if not, she’s going to move you,” said the Italian.
Swiatek can attest to the truth of that. It promises to be a fascinating final.