Iga Swiatek wins the tournament after a sumptuous fight against Aryna Sabalenka

For their first clash of the year 2024, the two best players on the circuit offered a very high level match, which the Pole finally won in three sets (7-5, 4-6, 7-6 [9-7]). A good omen three weeks before Roland-Garros.

She collapsed to the ground, her arms crossed, her heart light. The symbol of a huge duel which will have turned in his favor. Beating Aryna Sabalenka in the final of the WTA 1000 in Madrid (7-5, 4-6, 7-6 [9-7]) in 3h11, Saturday May 4, Iga Swiatek took her revenge on last year, where the Belarusian had beaten her at the same stage of the tournament. She also marked her territory three weeks before Roland-Garros.

This meeting was the scene of a superb spectacle between two players adept at the surface and brought together on the Parisian ocher, who went blow for blow throughout the match. This is the third WTA 1000 of the season for the Pole, after Doha and Indian Wells, she who had never raised her arms in Madrid until now.

Opposed four times in 2023, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek had not yet crossed paths on the circuit this season. In a remake of the 2023 final in the Iberian capital, the world No. 1 was able to make the difference in key moments of the first and third sets to bring down an opponent who was initially frustrated by her lack of solutions, before raising their heads and proposing a completely different opposition.

A final titanic set

If the two players exchanged breaks at the start of the first two rounds, they took turns at their throw-in at the end of the round to offer it to their opponent. At the start of the last round, and after 1h54, the level of the two players rose again, like a closely contested game on Aryna Sabalenka’s serve at 1-1. Once again, the two protagonists quickly lost their faceoff before making a series of plays and strokes of genius.

The tension rose another notch at 5-5, when conceding a break almost certainly became synonymous with defeat. Aryna Sabalenka had a first match point, which she wasted, before continuing to put pressure on Iga Swiatek, who conceded a double fault while the tie-break was before her. In the second, the Pole herself took charge of erasing the threat, before going for a decisive game where she once again defended a match point, before making her opponent pay dearly for her missed opportunities to win, on his second opportunity.

For the seventh time in 10 duels, Iga Swiatek tames Aryna Sabalenka. But she equalized at (2-2) in the confrontations concluded in three sets.