MELBOURNE, Australia — An emotional
Iga Swiatek
battled into her third Grand Slam quarter-final and first at the Australian
Open as she ground past resurgent Romanian
Sorana Cirstea on Monday.
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The seventh-seeded former
French Open champion encountered
stiff resistance from the world number 38 before coming through 5–7, 6–3, 6–3
on Margaret Court Arena.
She will play either world number two
Aryna Sabalenka or
Estonian veteran
Kaia Kanepi for a place in the semi-finals.
Still just 20, Swiatek has been remarkably consistent in the
majors. The match against Cirstea was a sixth consecutive appearance in the
second week of a Grand Slam, going back to her 2020 title run at the French
Open.
"This match was so much energy and it was hard to stay
calm," said Swiatek, who was tearful at the end. "During the match my
stress level was high.
"I cry when I lose and I cry when I win," she
added.
Swiatek was heavily favored, but the Romanian was coming off
a great win against 10th-seeded Russian
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and caused her
serious trouble.
She broke Swiatek on her first game and while the Pole leveled
at 4-4, she was broken again by the power and precision of Cirstea's
groundstrokes to lose the set.
Swiatek stepped up a level in the second set to fight back.
The pair exchanged breaks before the 20-year-old pounced again for a 4-2 lead
and clung on to take the match into a decider.
With the pressure mounting, Cirstea caved in first, slapping
a backhand into the net on break point to give Swiatek a 3-2 lead.
It was short-lived and with the error count mounting on both
sides Swiatek was broken straight back before breaking again to love to
reassert her advantage. And this time she closed out the win.
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