Tennis – Australian Open – Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia – January 20, 2023 Poland’s Iga Swiatek in action during her third round match against Spain’s Cristina Bucsa REUTERS/Hannah Mckay
MELBOURNE-Top seed Iga Swiatek continued to carve her way through the Australian Open draw on Friday, dismantling Cristina Bucsa 6-0 6-1 in bright sunshine on the Margaret Court Arena to reach the fourth round at a canter.
The 21-year-old world number one, who is looking to add a first Melbourne Park crown to the French and U.S. Open titles she won last year, was all business as she whipped through the first set in 23 minutes.
World number 100 Bucsa had simply no answer to Swiatek’s all-court game and the Spaniard only managed to avoid the dreaded ‘double bagel’ 6-0 6-0 scoreline by holding her last service game.
“My main goal was to keep my focus till the end because sometimes it’s hard when you feel like you control everything, your mind can wander off,” Swiatek said.
“I’m pretty happy that I was solid till the end. I didn’t really let Cristina play her game. I know she can be solid, so I’m pretty happy that I was just disciplined.”
Swiatek has made at least the fourth round at Melbourne Park for the last four years and said she felt she was right where she should be heading into the second week of the year’s first Grand Slam.
“I feel I’m more and more confident since day one here. I’m not even talking about matches, but also practices,” she added.
“I feel like I’ve done so much work to feel more confident, more relaxed on court. I’m pretty happy that I did it because it’s just a little bit easier. When you actually played those matches, you can feel the rhythm a little bit more.”
If the seedings had held, Swiatek would now be preparing for a meeting with Danielle Collins, the American who thrashed her in the semi-final at Melbourne Park last year.
Collins was upset on Friday by Elena Rybakina, however, so Swiatek will have a last-16 meeting with last year’s Wimbledon winner in a battle of reigning Grand Slam champions.
Swiatek said she would not be thinking about that match-up on Friday and would wait for her coach to prepare her tactically to play the big-serving Kazakh.
Rybakina said she had not looked at the draw and appeared genuinely surprised that she would be meeting the world number one after playing what she said was her best match of the year so far against Collins.
“No matter, the goal is to beat the top players,” the world number 25 said.
“I think that it’s going to be tough match. Hopefully, it’s going to go my way.”