Iga Swiatek waltzed through her title defence in Doha last week for the loss of just five games, and she has been barely less lethal so far this week in Dubai, where she advanced to the final for the first time with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Coco Gauff.
Swiatek will face Barbora Krejcikova in Saturday’s showpiece after the Czech saw off third seed Jessica Pegula 6-1, 5-7, 6-0, to set up a potential repeat of last October’s three-set thriller in Ostrava.
The result went against Swiatek on that occasion, one of only two losses she has suffered in 14 tour-level finals to date, and neither was the Polish world No 1 entirely able to control the narrative against Gauff.
Success has become a relative term for those facing Swiatek, certainly since her Australian Open defeat to Elena Rybakina last month, and for Gauff it was to be found in the fact that she accounted for six of the nine games the top seed has conceded on her way to the final.
It will come as scant consolation, of course, particularly after a sixth successive loss against the woman who humbled her in her maiden grand slam final at Roland Garros last summer. And it true that Swiatek held a healthy lead in both sets before Gauff belatedly roused herself. Yet the American prodigy pushed Swiatek harder than anyone else has managed over the past fortnight, denying her as she attempted to serve out the opener at 5-2, saving two set points in the next game with some brilliant attacking play, and exerting enough pressure from the baseline to unsettle the Pole as she served at 4-1 in the second, producing two double-faults.
“I’m happy that I started both sets well,” said Swiatek. “I think she used her chances to come back and to win a break. But honestly I felt like, with the way I started, I could always come back to the game I played at the beginning.”
That game consisted principally of an unrelenting attack on Gauff’s forehand, which remains the weakest link in the 18-year-old’s game for the time being.
Just as Swiatek fell fractionally short of her recent perfect standards in the heat of battle, so her difficulties continued in amusing fashion afterwards. First, she made the unusual request to restart her scrawled camera lens message. Then, as she attempted to explain herself in her on-court interview, revealing that she had wanted to write a note encouraging her father to fly over for the final but couldn’t decide whether to write in Polish or English, she began coughing and croaking.
“I’m pretty happy that tennis is working out, because writing and talking, not my thing right now,” Swiatek quipped.
Off the court, Swiatek has been suffering with a cold. On it, however, it is her opponents who have been doing the suffering.
Krejcikova knows she will have her work cut out if she is to complete a perfect sequence of victories over the top three, having already beaten Pegula and Aryna Sabalenka in the previous two rounds. Yet the Czech does not lack belief, and it will be fascinating to see how the final unfolds.
“It’s always a huge challenge [playing Swiatek],” said Krejcikova. “I love challenges. I expect it’s going to be really difficult, because she’s in a great form and she’s playing well. I believe that I’m playing well, as well.
“I think that I can find a plan that can push her on a back leg. I believe that I have a chance.”