TRAILING a set and two breaks, world number two Iga Swiatek found her best form when she needed it to put away Barbora Krejcikova and win 4-6 7-5 6-2 on day two of the WTA Finals. It has been a long two months since Swiatek last stepped foot on a WTA Tour court, with the former world number one – who lost the rank during her break – a little rusty to start but roared to life in the last two sets.

Krejcikova is the lowest ranked player at the event, coming in at 13th in the world, but earning qualification through her Wimbledon victory. She showed she is capable of matching it with the best though, winning the first set 6-4 and racing out to a 3-0 lead in the second set.

The match looked to be completely one-sided until that point, with Swiatek clicking into gear. The five-time Grand Slam winner stormed back into the contest, winning seven of the next nine games to take out the second set, and 13 of the next 17 games to close out the match in two hours and 33 minutes.

“Even though I played a lot of those [practice] matches,” Swiatek said post-match. “I kind of forgot for a while how it is to feel all those things, a bit different stress and emotions. For sure, I needed some time to adapt. The most important thing was that even though it happened, I managed to fight through that. And was patient enough to wait to get better.”

Krejcikova only played 29 matches in the 2024 WTA Tour season, but despite that, looked the goods early winning 80 and 55 per cent of her first and second serve points, while running at a 65 per cent clip. Swiatek was completely on top by the end, serving four aces in the deciding set and only dropping vie points on serve, while Krejcikova won just 14 of 31 (45 per cent) on her serve.

“Honestly, I just focused on getting the balls in,” Swiatek said. “I needed to focus on the easy stuff. My main goal was just to be solid. “I’m happy that I won because at the beginning I felt a little bit rusty.“

Krejcikova was not disappointed with her performance, and while admitted she could play better, it was just a case of the better player finding her form at the right time.

“It definitely wasn’t the best tennis I can play, but I was really quite solid,” Krejcikova said. “I just feel I lost a little bit the momentum of the match and obviously, I’m not really sure if it was me or Iga. She just came up and started to play more aggressive, started to hit her targets better.

“Yeah, unfortunately, it’s Iga – and you have to play two sets better than her.”

Gauff powers past Pegula

THE best of Coco Gauff was on show during her win over Jessica Pegula at Riyadh, storming to victory in an hour and 16 minutes, 6-3 6-2. The young gun proved too much for her older countrywoman, with the win marking Gauff’s 20th Top 10 victory, the first since last year’s WTA Finals.

In the match, Gauff won 67 and 50 per cent of her first and second serve points, running at an okay 56 per cent, similar to her opponent. However by comparison, Pegula only went at 48 per cent off both serves, while breaking twice to Gauff’s five times.

“I think maybe I served better than previous times and this is our first time, I think, playing each other on indoor hard, so maybe that had something to do with it,” Gauff said post-match.

“I don’t know. I think I know I’ve lost to her a lot, but it doesn’t feel like it sometimes, because we do practice a lot, and obviously when we’re playing sometimes I win practice sets, sometimes she does. So it doesn’t feel like the head to head is as bad as it was.”

In defeat, Pegula said she just felt “kind of off” and Gauff was simply too good.

“I didn’t feel like I was necessarily hitting the ball that bad, but just making a couple extra errors,” she said. “Against someone like that, who’s obviously had a really good fall after the Open too, she’s feeling confident, so you just can’t really let those moments kind of slip away.”

Gauff will face off against Swiatek on Tuesday to determine who goes through to the semi-finals, while Pegula will back up against Krejcikova to try and stay in contention for the semi-finals.

Action heads back to the Purple Group overnight with fifth seeded Elena Rybakina and seventh seeded Qinwen Zheng looking for their first win, while top ranked Aryna Sabalenka takes on fourth seed Jasmine Paolini in the later match.