Iga Swiatek, the second seed, continued her impressive streak by reaching the round of 16 at a WTA 1000 tournament for the 25th time in a row. She defeated the 27th seed, Elise Mertens, in the Miami Open third round with a score of 7-6(2), 6-1.
Swiatek has consistently reached the last 16 at this level since Cincinnati 2021. Maria Sharapova holds the second-longest streak with 18 consecutive last-16 appearances in WTA 1000 events between Indian Wells 2011 and Rome 2013.
Similar to her previous match against Caroline Garcia, Swiatek faced some resistance. After leading 5-2 in the first set, Mertens, who recently won a title in Singapore, fought back to tie the set at 5-5. However, Swiatek regained control, winning the tiebreak decisively and dominating the second set.
Swiatek mentioned that her serve was not at its best in the first set, winning only 43% of her second serve points. This allowed Mertens to take advantage and hit effective winners. In the second set, Swiatek improved her first serve percentage significantly, from 60% to 79%, which helped her to regain control of the match.
In her on-court interview, Swiatek commented, `In the first set, my serve wasn`t working perfectly. I`m glad I was patient and worked through it, and I felt much better in the second set.`
Swiatek`s next challenge will be against No. 22 seed Elina Svitolina in the Miami quarterfinal. Svitolina defeated No. 15 seed Karolina Muchova. Swiatek holds a 2-1 lead in her head-to-head record against Svitolina, including a win in their only previous hard-court match in Dubai last year.
Rupert Caldwell