Iga Swiatek wasted no time once on court. The No. 2 seed swept past Victoria Azarenka 6-0, 6-2 in a battle of former finalists to reach the last 16 at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on Tuesday.
A long rain delay had paused Jasmine Paolini’s match ahead of Swiatek on Center Court at match point to the defending champion against Eva Lys. In her on-court interview, the Pole said that she had warmed up “four or five” times initially, before settling down with a book, a nap and some Lego — the last of which was interrupted by her match call.
Swiatek, the Dubai runner-up to Barbora Krejcikova in 2023, had suffered a heavy 6-3, 6-1 loss to Jelena Ostapenko last week in the Doha semifinals. But she bounced back to her usual position of doling them out with an immaculate performance against Azarenka, the 2010 runner-up to Venus Williams, sealing victory in just 1 hour and 13 minutes.
Elsewhere, American McCartney Kessler earned the first Top 10 victory of her young career on Tuesday at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, upsetting No. 3 seed Coco Gauff 6-4, 7-5.
Kessler, who had upset Doha champion Amanda Anisimova in the first round, is through to the third round of a WTA 1000 for the first time in her career, and will face either No. 14 seed Karolina Muchova or 2021 US Open winner Emma Raducanu next.
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