“Who has been this dominant?” Pam Shriver draws a parallel between Iga Swiatek’s winning streak to that of Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic
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Pam Shriver, Iga Swiatek, Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic
World No. 1 Iga Swiatek is currently on a red-hot streak of 30 consecutive wins after her second-round win in the 2022 French Open over Alison Riske. Iga’s streak started back in February 2022 after her second-round defeat in the 2022 Dubai Tennis Championships and has not looked back since then.
During the run so far, she has clinched five consecutive titles, three titles on hardcourts and two titles on claycourts. All three titles of her on hardcourts were the first three WTA-1000 events of the Tour in Qatar, Indian Wells and Miami that also made her one of the few players to clinch the Sunshine Double, winning Indian Wells and Miami titles in the same season. On clay, she won the WTA-500 event in Stuttgart before making a successful title defence in the WTA-1000 Italian Open in Rome to win her fifth title of the season.
“You have to win at least one major” Pam Shriver on Iga Swiatek’s streak
If Iga wins the 2022 French Open, she will match Venus Williams‘ record of 35-wins set in 2002 and remains to date the best streak in the 21st century. Given Iga’s form, one might imagine her winning the major and getting hold of Venus’ record and for former doubles World No. 1 and singles World No. 3 Pam Shriver, a major in a streak this memorable becomes necessary.
“Obviously, she had some battles during that streak, the Samsonova [semi-final] in Stuttgart, the first set against Andreescu [in Rome]. There have been moments where she hasn’t been at her best, but her record in second sets or her record in even tight first sets has been tremendous. Who has been this dominant? You could say Ashleigh Barty has some of these qualities, but I would say to win this many tournaments in a row, beating virtually all of your fellow top-10ers and beating a few of them a couple of times, it’s really Serena-like.
“Back in my day, it would have been Monica [Seles] or Steffi [Graf] or Martina [Navratilova]-like the way she’s done it. I will tell you, in order to make a streak like this truly memorable, you have to win at least one major during the streak. And if the pressure starts to build, the combination of the streak plus trying to win Roland-Garros, then we can sort of think back to what happened to Novak Djokovic [in 2011] when he had an even a longer streak [41 straight matches, before he fell to Federer in the semi-finals].
“It’s a fascinating thing that’s happened; very unpredictable out of the Australian Open where Barty looked like the dominant No.1. Now we have a new dominant No.1, and who can stop her in this era of women’s tennis?” said Shriver in comments reported by the official site of Roland Garros.
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