CANCUN, Mexico — Iga Swiatek earned her first WTA Finals title and the year-end No. 1 rating by overwhelming Jessica Pegula 6-1, 6-0 on Monday within the newest in a sequence of dominant performances.
“She clearly actually needed that rating. I imply, you can inform by the way in which she was competing right here. … She was, like right now, crushing individuals,” Pegula mentioned.
From 1-all on the outset, Swiatek seized full management, gathering the following 11 video games together with her high-quality baseline recreation, not often making an unforced error and repeatedly pressuring Pegula into errors.
Swiatek, a 22-year-old from Poland, went 5-0 on the tour’s season-closing championship, profitable all 10 units she performed and ceding a complete of simply 20 video games. That is the fewest by the event’s winner since 2003, when the occasion for the highest eight gamers in girls’s tennis returned to a round-robin format; the earlier low in that span was the 34 video games dropped by Justine Henin in 2007.
“We have had many ups and downs, however that is, for certain, an up,” Swiatek mentioned, addressing her staff through the post-match ceremony.
She is the youngest WTA Finals champion since Petra Kvitova was 21 in 2011.
Swiatek prolonged her profitable streak to 11 matches and improved to 68-11 with six trophies in 2023, together with on the French Open in June for her fourth Grand Slam title.
Pegula referred to as it “an incredible 12 months.”
“You proceed to push me to be a greater participant each single 12 months,” Pegula mentioned. “I want I might have achieved higher right now, however that is not the way it goes typically.”
This victory permits Swiatek to return to No. 1, a spot she held from April 2022 till this September, when she relinquished it to Aryna Sabalenka after the U.S. Open. In Cancun, Swiatek defeated Sabalenka in a semifinal that started Saturday, was suspended by rain, then completed on Sunday.
Pegula hadn’t dropped a set coming into Monday and eradicated her doubles companion, U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff, on Saturday. Pegula, a 29-year-old born in New York and now based mostly in Florida, was bidding to develop into the oldest first-time WTA Finals champ and to choose up what would have been crucial trophy of her profession.
By beating No. 1 Sabalenka and No. 4 Elena Rybakina within the group stage, then No. 3 Gauff within the semis, earlier than taking up No. 2 Swiatek, Pegula grew to become the primary lady to face every of the highest 4 gamers on the planet at one occasion for the reason that begin of the WTA rankings in 1975.
“Taking part in towards you has by no means been simple,” Swiatek instructed Pegula.
However Pegula’s nine-match profitable streak was stopped emphatically by Swiatek.
Swiatek completed with extra winners, 9-6, and much fewer unforced errors, 23-6. She broke Pegula 5 occasions whereas solely dealing with one break level herself — and it got here as Swiatek served for the match within the final recreation.
“It simply was a type of days the place I felt like I used to be going for an excessive amount of,” Pegula mentioned. “And she or he was simply taking part in tremendous stable.”
When it ended, Swiatek dropped to her again, then sat up and yelled. Some spectators waved red-and-white Polish flags. In the course of the trophy presentation, followers showered her with chants of “Iga!”
The ultimate was performed underneath a largely blue sky and with far much less wind than gamers had been compelled to take care of all through the week. And, most significantly, there wasn’t a drop of rain.
Laura Siegemund of Germany and Vera Zvonareva of Russia received the doubles title Monday by beating Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the U.S. and Ellen Perez of Australia 6-4, 6-4.
The singles and doubles title matches each initially had been scheduled to be contested Sunday, then had been pushed again after a sequence of showers affected play through the WTA Finals.
“It hasn’t been the simplest week,” Pegula instructed the group, “for any of us.”
