Swiatek Finishes 2023 Off With WTA Finals Title
Iga Swiatek reclaimed her spot atop the WTA Tour as she completed a dominant week at the WTA Finals in Cancun, concluding it with a convincing 6-1, 6-0 victory over American Jessica Pegula in the finals on Monday.
The win marks the first year-end championships title for the 22-year-old from Poland, and also ensures that she will move back into the top spot in the world rankings, and will finish as the tour’s year-end number one for the second straight year.
“Coming back to world number one, it’s a dream come true, for sure,” said Swiatek. “I would say I wasn’t expecting that right now, this season. I was hoping that maybe next year is going to be my year, but it seems like just working hard and focusing on the right things at the end worked, so I’m really happy.”
Swiatek entered the WTA Finals fresh off of a title in Beijing, and has now won 11 straight matches overall, and 12 of her last 13. In Cancun, Swiatek lost only 20 games total in her five matches, the least amount of games dropped since the round-robin format was introduced in 2003.
“I’m just really happy and super proud of myself,” said Swiatek. “This week has not been easy, but I feel like it’s a kind of a reflection of the whole season. So I’m just happy that I could cope with everything well, and I kind of used my experience from all these years to perform well here.”
The title is the 17th of her career and sixth in 2023 alone, and Swiatek becomes the youngest WTA Finals champion since Petra Kvitova won the title in Istanbul in 2011.
