Iga Swiatek beats Danielle Collins to advance as Elena Rybakina overcomes Daria Kasatkina to reach semi-finals 

Iga Swiatek won her 50th match of the season, by a 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 count over qualifier Danielle Collins Friday night in Montreal.

The World No.1 moved into Saturday’s semifinal match against No.3 Jessica Pegula at the Omnium National Bank tournament. Earlier, Pegula was a dramatic 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 winner over doubles partner Coco Gauff.

Over the past two seasons, Swiatek has won 117 matches — the most Hologic WTA Tour in a two-year span since Angelique Kerber in 2015-16. The last player to win 50-plus matches in back-to-back seasons was Karolina Pliskova (2018-19). Swiatek’s the first player since Serena Williams (2013-2014) to win 117 matches over two years.

By reaching this quarterfinal, Swiatek extended her reign as the No.1-ranked player to 72 weeks, 10th place on the all-time list and one more than Caroline Wozniacki.

“I really wanted to play powerful and I’m pretty happy that I managed to even increase the power in the third set,” Swiatek said in her on-court interview. “For sure, I was looking for that. Today I felt like I really needed to go even higher in terms of the intensity.

“I’m really proud of myself that I made it to the semis. I’m happy that I can play another match.”

No.3 seed Elena Rybakina saved one match point during a marathon late-night victory over No.10 seed Daria Kasatkina to reach the Omnium Banque Nationale semifinals.

Rybakina prevailed 5-7, 7-5, 7-6(8) over Kasatkina after 3 hours and 27 minutes of play in their quarterfinal classic. The match ended just five minutes before the clock struck 3:00 a.m. on Saturday morning.

Rybakina has now won all four of her WTA 1000 quarterfinals in 2023, after being 0-3 in WTA 1000 quarterfinals before this year. Rybakina has won 22 matches at WTA 1000 events this year, which leads all players in 2023.