“Iga Swiatek has a purpose” Naomi Osaka believes the World No. 1 is chasing some ‘secret’ goal
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Naomi Osaka and Iga Swiatek
World No. 1 Iga Swiatek has been dominating the WTA Tour massively this season. With a strong campaign in Australia where she reached the semis of the WTA-500 event in Adeliade and then the 2022 Australian Open, Iga went on to win 4 consecutive Tour titles after a second-round exit in Dubai, her only event where she didn’t make the semis.
With the sudden retirement of Ash Barty from tennis, Iga rose to the World No. 1 spot and cleared all the doubts about her worthiness as she clinched a hattrick of WTA-1000 titles in Qatar, Indian Wells and Miami. She later played at the WTA-500 event in Stuttgart, her clay debut of the season, and won that as well to become the first player since Serena Williams in 2013 to win four consecutive titles.
With a healthy lead in both WTA rankings and the WTA singles race for the Year-End Championships, even Iga’s colleagues are impressed by the 20-year old’s performance and the latest one to speak about is 4-time Grand Slam champion and former World No. 1 Naomi Osaka. Osaka and Iga could have clashed in the 2022 Madrid Open but Iga’s injury forces her to withdraw from the tournament.
“I think it’s really awesome what she’s doing. I wish I would be able to win four tournaments in a row. I think to me she just looks really concentrated, which is really cool at such a young age. I think she has a goal, maybe we all don’t know about that goal, but it really looks like she has a purpose. It’s really cool to see her playing that well and I really want to play her on clay just to see what happens,” said Osaka during the Media Day at the 2022 Madrid Open.
Iga Swiatek served Naomi Osaka a bagel in the Miami Open finals
Iga and Naomi have met just twice on the Tour so far. Their first meeting took place in the 2019 Rogers Cup when Iga as a qualifier reached the third round of the tournament where Naomi was the second seed. In a close match, Naomi took out Iga on her way to the quarter-finals.
The two met very recently in the finals of the 2022 Miami Open where Iga was looking to capture the Sunshine Double while Naomi was hunting for her first title of the season. After a tight first set which Iga won 6-4, the Pole dished a bagel to Naomi in the second set to complete the historic achievement of winning both Indian Wells and Miami titles in the same season.
Also Read: “Iga Swiatek needs to retire” Paula Badosa jokes about how can she replace the Pole as World No. 1
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