Delayed over four hours before starting her Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships campaign, Iga Swiatek wasted no time once on court. The No. 2 seed swept past Victoria Azarenka 6-0, 6-2 in a battle of former finalists to reach the last 16.

Dubai: Draws | Scores | Order of play 

A long rain delay had paused Jasmine Paolini's match ahead of Swiatek on Center Court at match point to the defending champion against Eva Lys. In her on-court interview, the Pole said that she had warmed up "four or five" times initially, before settling down with a book, a nap and some Lego -- the last of which was interrupted by her match call.

Swiatek, the Dubai runner-up to Barbora Krejcikova in 2023, had suffered a heavy 6-3, 6-1 loss to Jelena Ostapenko last week in the Doha semifinals. But she bounced back to her usual position of doling them out with an immaculate performance against Azarenka, the 2010 runner-up to Venus Williams, sealing victory in just 1 hour and 13 minutes.

Here are the key numbers from Swiatek's win:

31-9: Swiatek tallied 31 winners to just nine unforced errors in the match, with her forehand down the line particularly breathtaking in its power and accuracy. Her opening set was near-perfect. She committed only three unforced errors, only faced one break point, and did not allow Azarenka to reach game point on her own serve. 

2: Swiatek was relentless in attacking the Azarenka second serve, winning 13 out of 15 points behind it.

17: In total, Swiatek put together a 17-game winning streak against Azarenka. She had won the last nine in a row of their last meeting, a 6-4, 6-0 win in the 2024 Doha quarterfinals, and won the first eight here. A rare Swiatek double fault ended the streak in the third game of the second set, after which a pumped-up Azarenka was able to get a foothold in more of the higher-intensity exchanges. But after Swiatek had fended off three break points to reach 5-2, the five-time major champion broke Azarenka for the sixth time to close the match out. She now owns a 4-1 record against Azarenka.

51: Swiatek has gone 51 consecutive tournaments without losing her opening match, starting at Adelaide 2022. This ties the longest such run this century -- Kim Clijsters did not lose her opening match between Montreal 2002 and Hasselt 2005 inclusive, before her streak was snapped by Mary Pierce at the 2005 WTA Finals Los Angeles. Swiatek's last opening loss came to Maria Sakkari at the 2021 WTA Finals Guadalajara. (Her last opening loss at a knockout tournament was to Ons Jabeur at Cincinnati 2021.)

5: The match marks just the fifth time that Azarenka has won two games or fewer in a completed tour-level match. The first two occasions were in 2007, when she was 17 years old -- 6-1, 6-1 losses to Romina Oprandi in the Amelia Island first round and to Karin Knapp at the same stage of Roland Garros. Azarenka also lost 6-0, 6-2 to Ashleigh Barty in the 2021 Cincinnati third round and to Emma Raducanu in the 2022 Cincinnati second round.

0-1: Swiatek's next opponent will be former Australian Open semifinalist Dayana Yastremska, who ended Anastasia Potapova's six-match winning streak 6-2, 6-3. Swiatek has a 0-1 record against the Ukrainian, who won their only previous encounter 7-6(2), 6-4 in 2019 Billie Jean King Cup group stage action.

Yastremska overpowers Potapova in Dubai; sets Swiatek meeting next