Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova is in and French Open champion Iga Swiatek is out of the WTA Finals Riyadh.
Krejcikova entered play Thursday in Saudi Arabia facing a win-and-get-in situation to qualify for the event semifinals. And that’s just what the eighth seed did, upsetting third-seeded Coco Gauff 7-5, 6-4 to advance as the top finisher in the Orange group in Saudi Arabia.
“Definitely this is a big win for me,” Krejcikova, a Czech, said after the match.
“This year was really up and down, and definitely the Wimbledon victory is the highest point of my career so far,” she continued. “Being here, being able to qualify for the semis and playing tomorrow, it’s something unimaginable before this tournament, so I’m really proud of myself and looking forward to the new challenges.”
Also winning Thursday was second-seeded Swiatek of Poland, who topped alternate Daria Kasatkina in straight sets. But with Krejcikova, Gauff and Swiatek all finishing 2-1 in the Orange group, Swiatek — the defending champion — wound up as the odd woman out due to complicated round-robin tiebreaker rules.
Reporters told Swiatek after the match that her dominant 6-1, 6-0 win had no bearing on whether she’d advance. The only thing that mattered toward her fate was the result of the Krejcikova-Gauff showdown.
“Honestly, I don’t think it matters, like we go out on court to win every match anyway. So I wasn’t thinking about that,” Swiatek said. “I didn’t know that this is the case. … I’m professional enough to always give 100 percent no matter what the stakes are.”
The 51-minute match was the shortest at the WTA Finals in eight years.
In the semifinals, Krejcikova will face seventh-seeded Qinwen Zheng of China, the second-place finisher in the Purple group. Top seed Aryna Sabalenka, winner of that group, will take on Gauff.
For success against Sabalenka, the newly crowned No. 1 player in the world. Gauff will need to cut down on her unforced errors. She had 40 against Krejcikova compared to 20 winners. While she fired 10 aces, she notched four double faults and could convert on just one of 12 break chances.
Sabalenka won the past two meetings against Gauff, most recently in the semifinal in Wuhan last month.
Zheng, who won the gold medal at the Paris Olympics, likely enters the match with Krejcikova as the favorite. Zheng is 30-5 since Wimbledon, while the Czech has played only 32 matches this season.
–Field Level Media
