World No.1 Iga Swiatek soared to her fourth title of the season Sunday with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Laura Siegemund in the final of the BNP Paribas Warsaw Open, her home tournament.
Swiatek picked up her 15th career title with the victory, adding to triumphs this year in Doha, Stuttgart and Roland Garros, and didn't lost a set over the course of the tournament.
"I want to thank my team and my family. It's not easy to play in Warsaw, but I'm so happy that we could manage and do everything we could today, after a pretty tiring day yesterday," Swiatek said.
"I wanted to put it all in and go for it. I'm pretty happy that I did."
Home is where the HEART is ❤️
— wta (@WTA) July 30, 2023
World No.1 @iga_swiatek secures her fourth title of the season and her first on home soil! #BNPParibasWarsawOpen pic.twitter.com/TziSIkrh79
Before taking the court against Siegemund, Swiatek finished off her semifinal against Yanina Wickmayer, 6-1, 7-6(6). The match was suspended on Saturday night due to darkness at 6-1, 5-5 -- after Swiatek led 5-2 and had three match points at 5-3 in the second set. Upon resumption, she was two points away from being pushed to a third set at 30-30 and deuce serving down 6-5, and needed three more match points in the tiebreak after nearly losing a 5-1 lead to seal victory.
Highlights: Swiatek def. Wickmayer
But there was no such trouble against Siegemund in a championship match that lasted just 68 minutes. She broke Siegemund five times and never faced a break point to improve to 2-0 against the German all-time.
Siegemund, playing her first final since winning the 2017 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, upset No.4 seed Zhu Lin in the second round and spent more than six hours on court Saturday in winning her quarterfinal and semifinal matches against Lucrezia Stefanini and Tatjana Maria, which were played back-to-back as a result of rain earlier in the week.
Here, there and
— wta (@WTA) July 30, 2023
EVERYWHERE! @iga_swiatek | #BNPParibasWarsawOpen pic.twitter.com/Vs0hN3LQb3
"I'm sorry I couldn't put up more of a battle today, but it was a little bit too much yesterday," Siegemund said. "I tried my best, but the legs, they stayed at the hotel today.
"But for me, it was really a great success anyway ... it was almost a win for me to be a final at all. It's been a long time. On such a great stage with such great spectators. ... I just enjoyed it."
Swiatek was equally complimentary of Siegemund's effort for the week. The World No.153 is projected to rise more than 40 places in Monday's rankings.
"Laura, what you did yesterday was pretty surreal," Swiatek said. I don't know if anyone would be able to survive that, but you did. Congratulations for this run, because it's been a pretty great week, and it's nice that we could play this final."
Let the celebrations begin 🎉@HeatherWatson92 & @yaninawickmaye8 capture the @BNPP_WarsawOpen doubles title! #BNPParibasWarsawOpen pic.twitter.com/MrMh270KeT
— wta (@WTA) July 30, 2023
Later on Sunday, Wickmayer and Heather Watson prevented a Polish sweep of the Warsaw titles, as they defeated home hopes Weronika Falkowska and Katarzyna Piter 6-4, 6-4 in the doubles final.
During the 77-minute victory, Great Britain's Watson and Belgium's Wickmayer converted half of their six break points, while also saving six of the seven break points they faced.
It is Watson's fifth career WTA doubles title, and her first since 2018. Wickmayer has now won four WTA doubles titles in her career.