After a stuttering start, Iga Swiatek’s challenge for a maiden title at the season-ending WTA Finals is up and running.
If the stars align for the 22-year-old Pole in the Mexican beach resort of Cancún, she may have an opportunity to reclaim the world No 1 ranking she relinquished to Aryna Sabalenka following last month’s US Open. But Swiatek, who is likely to need a near-perfect run to keep that hope alive, had her back to the wall in the early stages of her Chetumal Group opener against Marketa Vondrousova, dropping five of the first seven games to the Czech seventh seed.
At an event where the hastily-laid stadium court has been roundly criticised by the eight-woman field, Swiatek laboured in vain to strike a balance between consistency and aggression. Once she found her range, though, the four-time grand slam champion moved smoothly through the gears, producing a timely first ace to bring up three set points before pulling away to win 7-6 (7-3), 6-0.
“It doesn’t happen often, so for sure I’m going to take a lesson from that, that I can come back from any score,” said Swiatek following her recovery from 2-5 down.
“Even during the first part of the match, I wasn’t feeling like I was playing bad, I just felt like I was making mistakes. Overall, I was building up the rally, but then the last shot I was missing.
“So I thought that there is for sure room for improvement. It’s not like I had to change a lot, I just wanted to be more precise and more solid and not play risky, just keep my margins.”
The numbers bore out that analysis. Fifteen of Swiatek’s 22 unforced errors came in the opening set, and the bulk of those came early on as she struggled to come to terms with the tricky combination of Vondrousova’s southpaw spin and her first competitive appearance on a court where practice time has been at a premium.
Even as Vondrousova forged ahead, though, she was solid rather than spectacular. And after the 24-year-old Wimbledon champion delivered the third of her five double faults at 3-6 down in the tiebreak, her intensity and belief quickly waned. It was an all too familiar tale for Vondrousova, who lost to Swiatek by a near-identical scoreline this summer in Cincinnati after twice serving for the opening set, just as she did here.
Short of inspiration but not short of opinions, Vondrousova had much to say afterwards. Like Sabalenka, who remarked after her opening-day win over Maria Sakkari that she feels unsafe moving on a playing surface that was barely laid in time for the tournament’s commencement, Vondrousova took aim at both the court and the WTA.
“The court is honestly very bad, it’s very crazy,” said Vondrousova. “It bounces everywhere, and I feel like it’s almost like, I don’t know, bad clay or grass courts, it’s not even hard courts. I’m not saying that because I lost, I felt the same way in practice also. I don’t think this court is very good for the WTA Finals to be honest.”
Vondrousova later took to social media to elaborate on her criticism.
“My first WTA Finals is not at all what I imagined,” she wrote on Instagram. “We work hard all year to get to the finals and in the end it’s just a disappointment.
“[The] stadium is not at all ready for the matches, and to me it feels like the people from the WTA are absolutely not interested in how we, who are supposed to play on that court, feel. We do not feel that anyone listens to us and is interested in our opinions. Very sad.”
Even Swiatek, who has so far been more measured than most of her rivals in her assessment of the event’s chaotic organisation, acknowledged that the situation was less than ideal.
“Obviously it’s not a positive thing for any of us, but I think the main thing is not focusing on that and just doing your job,” said the French Open champion. “Sometimes it bounces weirdly on clay or on the grass as well, so I try to think in that perspective and just do my job.
“For sure it’s not comfortable, and the fact that we also didn’t have time to practise on this court. But at the end it doesn’t really matter, because all of us have the same court and the same conditions.”
Coco Gauff, the American third seed, enjoyed a more comfortable start to her group campaign, claiming a maiden win at the finals with a 6-0, 6-1 demolition of Ons Jabeur. The Tunisian was off the pace from the outset, struggling to find her customary touch and consistency, and although she returned from an hour-long rain delay to make a belated impression on the scoreboard, Gauff was not to be denied.
“She played really good today,” said Jabeur, who will face Vondrousova on Wednesday. “Not my best day on the court, but that’s tennis sometimes, unfortunately.”
Gauff afterwards confirmed that she has parted ways with Pere Riba, the Spanish coach with whom she has worked for the past five months. Riba, who together with Brad Gilbert guided the American teenager to her first grand slam title at last month’s US Open, ended the arrangement due to “family issues of a personal nature”.
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t my decision, but we had to end the partnership,” said the 19-year-old. “I had a great time with him and I wish him the best in his next chapter. If it was up to me, I would have loved to have him here but, you know, things happen, life happens. No bad terms on our end.
“Sometimes people think it’s bigger than it is, but some things just didn’t work out and that’s all. I still think that he was a great guy, and obviously he did amazing things for me personally and also for my game.”