Iga Swiatek pulls off very unfortunate feat at inaugural WTA Finals Riyadh

Iga Swiatek pulled off an unfortunate feat at this year’s WTA Finals after the 23-year-old became just the fourth player in the last 20 years to finish the Round Robin stage with a 2-1 record but still not reach the semifinal.

At the start of her title defense, the Pole found herself down by a set and two breaks before impressively storming back to beat Barbora Krejcikova 4-6 7-5 6-2. While the world No. 2 just barely avoided a loss in her opening match, she wasn’t that lucky in her next match after Coco Gauff handed her a 6-3 6-4 loss.

Entering the group’s finale, the American had a 2-0 record while Swiatek and the Czech were standing at 1-1. The first to hit the court on Thursday was the Polish tennis star, who annihilated alternate Daria Kasatkina 6-1 6-0 to secure her second win in Riyadh.

But the five-time Grand Slam champion still didn’t have anything in her hands because it all depended on the Gauff and Krejcikova match. For the Pole, there were only two scenarios – she makes the semifinal with the American’s win and goes home with if the Czech ends on the winning side. Unfortunately for Swiatek, the scenario she didn’t want to happen happened after Krejcikova earned a 7-5 6-4 win against the 2023 US Open champion.

In 2004, the exact same thing happened to former world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport, who beat Serena Williams and Elena Dementieva but the loss to Anastasia Myskina was costly. 10 years later, Ana Ivanovic defeated Simona Halep and Eugenie Bouchard but didn’t make it past the group stage following a loss to Williams. Three years ago in Guadalajara, Karolina Pliskova overcame Krejcikova and Garbine Muguruza in the Round Robin stage – lost only to Anett Kontaveit – and saw her run end in the group stage