Martina Navratilova heaps praise on Iga Swiatek for a brilliant year, backs the Pole for the WTA Finals title
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Iga Swiatek and Martina Navratilova
World No. 1 Iga Swiatek has been sensational this season. Becoming the top ranked player following the sudden retirement of Ash Barty, the Pole welcomed the opportunity with both hands. Swiatek has won 8 titles so far from 9 finals this season including the French Open and the US Open.
Swiatek has had unparalleled dominance this year. She has lost just 8 matches from the 72 she has played. With more than 10,000 ranking points to her name and a lead of more than 6000 points over World No. 2 Ons Jabeur, Swiatek looks unmatchable this year.
Speaking about her performances this season, former World No. 1 and 18-time singles Grand Slam winner Martina Navratilova gave her thoughts. “That streak was the biggest streak in a long time on the women’s tour. Iga just really dominated the tour this year, and deserves to be number one. I don’t think anybody can catch her. Actually it’s way too late now.
“I think for Iga, winning [WTA Finals] would be an opportunity to put an exclamation point on an amazing year. For all the other ones, it may be a chance to salvage a year that wasn’t as good as it could have been,” said Navratilova speaking with the Tennis.com.
Martina Navratilova believes the battle for the top spot is out of reach for anyone against Iga Swiatek
With Swiatek going on a winning streak of 37-matches across all three surfaces, the Pole truly made this season her own. Barring Wimbledon, she managed to reach the semis of all the other three slams as she won the titles in Paris and New York.
Navratilova also spoke whether Swiatek will be able to hold on to this level of dominance for the coming years. As players start to break Swiatek’s game in detail in hoping for a chance to beat her, Navratilova presented her thoughts on how long could the 21-year old stay on top.
“That’s way too soon to tell because, I think there’s so much that can still happen. Looking at the rankings, she has over twice as many points than anybody else. So it’s a massive gap. Caroline Garcia is kind of nipping at their heels [in the Race] too… Coco Gauff is on her way.
“But Iga has been the most consistent, as well as winning. Not just consistent, but consistently winning titles. We’ll see who gets to Fort Worth, but it should be very competitive. And I love the round robin format because you can lose and still win the tournament.
“So it will probably take the pressure off in a way. It’s anybody’s ballgame still—but for number two. The number one has been wrapped up nicely,” concluded Navratilova showing all signs of support for the Pole at the upcoming year-end Championships.
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Sarthak Shitole
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