World No.1 Iga Swiatek is through to her first semifinal at the Mutua Madrid Open after a 6-0, 6-3 win over Croatia's Petra Martic.Â
Swiatek was comprehensive from start to finish against No.27 seed Martic, who'd upset former Roland Garros champion and No.11 seed Barbora Krejcikova to earn her shot against Swiatek.Â
But after just 69 minutes, the World No.1 moved through to set up a semifinal match against Veronika Kudermetova; Kudermetova, seeded No.12, knocked out No.3 seed and defending finalist Jessica Pegula earlier in the day.
"I feel like I'm playing better and better every day," Swiatek said afterwards. "This is pretty great, because I didn't know if that was going to be possible at the beginning of the tournament. But I was patient and I was hoping to get that feeling, and today was for sure a good day."
Kudermetova overcomes Pegula in Madrid to make first WTA 1000 semifinal
Read on for more about Swiatek's quarterfinal win, by the numbers.
2: Swiatek improved to 2-0 against Martic in her career with the victory, and both of those matches have come at WTA 1000 events. She previously beat Martic 6-3, 6-1 at the BNP Paribas Open two years ago. Â
4: Swiatek and Kudermetova will play for the fourth time overall, and second time this year. Swiatek has won all three matches, and dropped just one game when they last met -- in the semifinals of the Qatar TotalEnergies Open in February.
"For me, it doesn't really matter what our head-to-head is," Swiatek said. "I'm just going to focus on myself and what I want to do on court, tactically. It's never easy to play a semifinal. In semifinals, there are players who've played already a great tournament. ... I'll just be ready."
Impressive đź’Ą@iga_swiatek remains undefeated on clay so far this season, defeating Martic to reach the semifinals in Madrid!#MMOPEN pic.twitter.com/moqwcvWALm
— wta (@WTA) May 3, 2023
7: Swiatek won the first seven games of Wednesday's quarterfinal before Martic got on the board with a hold to 30 in her first service game of the second set.
8: Swiatek lost just eight points in the first set, and seven of those were on her serve. She lost three of those points in the third game of the match, in which she saved a break point before holding to lead 3-0.
She also extended her winning streak on clay this spring to eight straight.
11: Swiatek hit 11 winners in victory to just eight unforced errors, and was a perfect 4-for-4 on break points converted.
17: Conversely, Martic his 17 unforced errors to just eight winners.
19: Swiatek is now 19-2 in quarterfinal matches at WTA level in her career. Both defeats have come on her preferred clay courts: against Maria Sakkari at Roland Garros in 2021, and against Caroline Garcia at her home tournament, the WTA 250 in Warsaw, last year.Â
27: The opening set lasted just 27 minutes, and marked Swiatek's seventh bagel set won this season.