Iga Swiatek Advances to Wimbledon Semifinals
The world’s number 8 tennis player, Iga Swiatek, has reached the Wimbledon semi-finals for the first time in her career. Swiatek, known for her dominance on clay, where she has won four of her five Grand Slam titles at Roland Garros, defeated Liudmila Samsonova, the number 19 seed, with a score of 6-2 and 7-5.
Swiatek, who won the girls’ singles title at Wimbledon in 2018, becomes the fourth active player to reach the semi-finals in all four Grand Slam tournaments. She joins Aryna Sabalenka, Victoria Azarenka, and Karolina Pliskova in this achievement.
In the first set, Swiatek won all ten points played with her initial serve. The second set was more contested, with both players breaking each other’s serve before Swiatek secured the crucial break in the final game.
Since the beginning of 2023, Swiatek has had an outstanding performance on grass, winning 17 of her last 20 matches on this surface, after a 6-5 record on the circuit before that period.
Swiatek, who also won the US Open in 2022, seeks to become the eighth woman to win a Grand Slam title on hard court, clay, and grass, something that no active player has achieved.
Her next opponent in the semifinals will be the winner of the match between Mirra Andreeva, the young Russian seeded number 7, and Belinda Bencic, from Switzerland.
Along with number 1, Sabalenka, a possible opponent in the final, Swiatek has reached the semifinals at the Australian Open, Roland Garros, and Wimbledon this year. The last time multiple women reached the semifinals in each of the first three Grand Slam tournaments was in 2006.
