Iga Swiatek admitted that she struggled to even find a “plan B” at the Madrid Open after a stunning loss to Coco Gauff in their semi-final showdown.
It took just 64 minutes for world No 4 Gauff to prevail 6-1, 6-1 when the two met on Court Manolo Santana, the American sealing her place in a first clay-court WTA 1000 final.
Swiatek’s defeat was the second-heaviest she has ever faced on a clay court at WTA Tour level, behind a 6-1, 6-0 loss to Simona Halep at the 2019 French Open – when she was just 18 years old.
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It also continued a six-match losing streak in WTA Tour semi-finals, having not reached a final or won a title since the French Open last June.
Asked to analyse her chastening defeat in her post-match press conference, the world No 2 conceded that her performance had been “pretty bad”.
She said: “Honestly, there’s nothing like to walk through because it was all pretty much the same from the beginning to the end.
“I couldn’t really get my level up. Coco played good, but, yeah, I think it’s on me that I didn’t really move well, I wasn’t ready to play back the shots with heaviness, and with that kind of game, it was pretty bad.”
Madrid Open News