How Iga Swiatek won the 2022 Miami Open
Iga Swiatek wins her third Masters title in a row at the Miami Open. We take a look at the fight her final three opponents put up and how Swiatek was able to bulldoze through them.
This is just getting silly Iga.
Iga Swiatek wins her third-consecutive Masters title at the Miami Open. She is the first Polish player, male or female, to become world #1 and is the youngest player to achieve the elusive Sunshine Double1.
Her tally now stands at four Masters titles in total. The only players to have got there at a younger age Martina Hingis, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Maria Sharapova and Serena and Venus Williams.
Not a bad list of players at all.
Amidst a barren stretch of inconsistent big title winners, Swiatek also joins Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka as the only active players to have won four Masters titles within the space of 12 months.
We could talk records on Swiatek’s recent dominance for days… Let’s dive into the actual tennis! Today, we’re analysing her final three wins:
Her quarterfinal victory over Petra Kvitova.
Her semifinal victory over Jessica Pegula.
Her final victory over Naomi Osaka.
Enjoy!
Miami Open Quarterfinal: Iga Swiatek defeats Petra Kvitova 6-3 6-3
Petra Kvitova is in a wee bit of a slump.
A quarterfinal showing in Miami was undoubtedly her best result since making the quarterfinals in Cincinnati last year, a stretch of seven months without winning three matches in a row.
The former world #2’s current ranking of around #30 is the lowest it’s been since she recovered from a knife attack in 2017.
Though she’s far removed from the giddy heights of her heyday, Petra Kvitova always has the potential to be dangerous and she showed it in an inconspicuous-looking 6-3 6-3 loss.
Petra’s Power
You need two things to have any chance against the Pole on a slower court.
1. A Weapon From The Baseline
Kvitova’s baseline power is the stuff of legends and against Swiatek at the back of the court, she actually accounted for herself pretty well.
When she could play it, her run-around forehand from the backhand corner was devastating. Many right-handed opponents without a ton of spin try to beat Swiatek in forehand cross-court duels (our next analysis on Jessica Pegula is a fine example) and come out second-best over and over, eventually getting bullied off the court by Swiatek’s heavy ball.
Though Kvitova’s left-handed forehand is also fairly flat, hitting inside-out gives her more margin to hit pacier (your body is behind the shot) than an ordinary cross-court forehand plus it’s easier to go closer to the sidelines inside-in to the backhand than having to direct it down the line from your forehand.
So when Kvitova could play a forehand from the deuce court, she could actually graft herself an advantage.
It’s a shot that few other players have, one of the few shots directed to Swiatek’s forehand that actually rewards her opponents.
The anticlimax however - as many might be expecting, she failed to execute consistently tallying 28 unforced errors to Swiatek’s seven.
Say we give Kvitova the benefit of the doubt and we chalk that down to the Swiatek-effect strangling all players on-court at the moment.
Where it’s harder to give Swiatek credit is in Kvitova making a ton of cheap return errors. Swiatek isn’t the greatest server in the world - okay, there’s a ton of kick but Kvitova missing 44% of her returns going aggressive is kinda inexcusable, generally never giving herself a chance to use her massive weaponry from the back of the court.
Swiatek did speak about the importance of the first-serve after the match. She seemed to go for a little less against Petra to ensure a first-serve percentage of over 70% e.g. Swiatek served 13 of 37 of her first-serves to Kvitova’s body for example and won 81% of these points.
Kvitova was never able to respond with enough returns in court, generating zero break points throughout the entirety match.
Her return points won percentage this season has seen a major dip of 2.5% from her career average - making less returns could be the reason for her slight decline in 2022.
2. A Big Serve In One Direction
It’s also essential you avoid getting into too many baseline rallies on serve if you’re going to play Swiatek, the best returner going by numbers this year.
I’m going to look passed the second-serve points - Swiatek getting on top of these points is understandable for all of the reasons in this article and the two covering her last two Masters title-runs.
The thing is, Kvitova actually made a decent 67% of first-serves in the three games where she was broken. Throughout the match, she had covered herself so well on her first-serve in the ad court, winning a ton of easy points using that lefty serve out wide - this amazing serve in turn opened up the T, giving her a very healthy win-percentage of 80% first-serves won on the ad-side…
… she just couldn’t find a way of winning easy points in the deuce court, her wide serve there complete fodder for Swiatek’s huge forehand returns (58% first-serves won % in deuce court).
I wish we’d seen more serve and volley! Kvitova’s first-serve is class - just a few more sneaky points like the above and below and we maybe could have seen slightly more resistance from Petra’s serve.
Key Thoughts
Kvitova was winning first-serve points in the ad court consistently and actually made a decent percentage of first-serves in general.
A bit more variety on first-serve in the deuce court could have won her a few more key points.
Kvitova actually possesses the power to find a way through Swiatek’s impenetrable forehand. Fluffed returns and difficulty setting up the inside-out ball due to inconsistency let her down.
Swiatek didn’t have to hit a ton of winners. She played steady as she needed to in this match, Kvitova never able to make things as complicated as she could have.
If Swiatek ever plays top-10-level Kvitova, we could have a real match on our hands!
Miami Open Semifinal: Iga Swiatek defeats Jessica Pegula 6-2 7-5
The most under-appreciated hard-court player over the last year or so?
Jessica Pegula is tied in third for wins at Masters level from the beginning of 2021.
Iga Swiatek with 29 wins.
Paula Badosa with 23 wins.
Jessica Pegula with 22 wins.
Sure enough, she gave Swiatek the closest run for her money in any set the eventual champion played this week.
Sponge
One of the reasons for Pegula’s success over the last few year or so on a hard-court is her ability to absorb pace.
Her rally temperament is insanely good - she’s not really a counter-puncher as such as her defensive to offensive game is slightly lacking but she is happy to construct a point with a series of solid forehands and/or backhands (both wings are of a similar standard, the forehand doing a smidge more damage) waiting for the right shot to finish with.
Take a look at Swiatek’s previous opponent’s abilities to extend the rallies and win them.
Using Osaka and Brengle as comparison from either ends of the spectrum:
Osaka won a very poor 30% of the points that went four or more shots but it didn’t make much a difference to the outcome match with only 35% of the total points fitting this rally length.
Brengle played a whopping 67% of her points in the four or more shot rally length but could only win 35% of these points - similarly amazing rally temperament and movement to Pegula but nothing to finish off the point.
Pegula was the only other player to play over 50% of her points in the 4+ rally length against Swiatek and she won 49% of these points. An important match category and Pegula was able to hold her own in this area.
Her sturdiness actually exposed some frailty in Swiatek’s backhand. Here are two match points Pegula saves to break back near the end of the match.
Pegula didn’t even try to hide her tactics in the second set putting up a wall against Swiatek’s backhand and waiting for the perfect moment to make her move.
Typical Forehand Cross
As with so many of her matches however, Swiatek well and truly dominated the forehand cross-court rallies which typically made all the difference.
Pegula eventually made the move to biding her time going into the forehand but, early doors, she tried to absorb equally from this side too.
Big mistake.
This forehand also allowed her to win points quickly on return.
Points won on Pegula’s serve 1-3 shots: Pegula = 18, Swiatek = 16
Points won on Swiatek’s serve in 1-3 shots: Pegula = 9, Swiatek = 27
A huge gulf between the two players.
Key Thoughts
Pegula was actually very impressive in the longer rallies and made Swiatek doubt herself on her backhand wing. With aggressive serving and returning not really her strength, if she had found a way to extend more of the rallies, she could have been dangerous.
The odd approach shot here and there was used to great effect to rush Swiatek.
Swiatek’s ability to use the forehand to keep points short was ultimately to vast an advantage.
A stern effort from Jessica Pegula and a round of applause to Swiatek for getting through it unscathed.
Miami Open Final: Iga Swiatek defeats Naomi Osaka 6-4 6-0
Iga Swiatek vs Naomi Osaka was the dream final.
Two of the strongest second-servers in the bizz…
Naomi Osaka second-serve win-percentage 2021: 57.8%.
8th-best on hard-court in 2021.
Iga Swiatek second-serve win-percentage 2021: 58.0%.
6th-best in 2021.
… would be looking to attack each other’s second-serves using two of the strongest second-serve returns in the bizz.
Naomi Osaka second-serve return win-percentage 2021: 50.9%.
4th-best on hard-court in 2021.
Iga Swiatek second-serve return win-percentage 2021: 52.3%.
2nd-best in 2021.
It sure was exciting on paper - but it was kind of a let down, right?
Iga Fully-Loaded
It’s been a long article so I’ll keep it simple.
The second-serve return was the single biggest difference between the two women in this match.
Swiatek won 67% of her second-serve points.
Osaka won 33% of her second-serve points.
There were a ton of second-serves to take advantage of as well. In the first set alone, Swiatek made 39% of her first-serves yet walked away from the match without facing a single break point.
It was Swiatek’s loaded second-serve that jumped into the backhand hip that seemed to cause the Japanese all sorts of problems.
Osaka frequently took up an extremely aggressive stance against the second-serve in the first set, exposing herself if Swiatek got her second deep and spinny.
The second-serve was the area Osaka had to exploit to have a chance in the match and she failed to execute given chances in the first set.
By the time the second set came around, Osaka adjusted her court position to make more returns. Swiatek’s first-serve started to land however and consequently Naomi won just five points on return in this set…
The Other Side Of The Coin
… and Osaka won just three points on serve in the final set.
Fortunately for Swiatek, her return strategy doesn’t rely on a deep return or taking the ball early. This gave Naomi few options to keep herself alive without going incredibly risky on the second-serve.
Key Thoughts
Though both players generally excel at second-serving and second-serve returning, Swiatek’s spinny advantages on the second-serve tempered Osaka’s early return strategy.
Swiatek’s ability to take the second-serve from deep in the court left Osaka fried on this shot.
A disappointing final in some ways but maybe we shouldn’t have expected anything less, Swiatek having now dropped 20 games in her last six finals combined.
We’ll end there as this was a long’un - Na Zdrowie Iga!
Go easy on the rest of the tour on clay, would ya?
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Three other players have achieved the Sunshine Double: Stefi Graf in 1994 and 1996 (24 and 26 years old), Kim Clijsters in 2005 (21 years old) and Victoria Azarenka in 2016 (26 years old).