Stat of the Day: Iga Swiatek wins eighth WTA title of year in San Diego

Iga Swiatek captured the WTA 500 title in San Diego on Sunday, battling past resurgent former Top 20 player Donna Vekic in the final, 6-3, 3-6, 6-0.

With her latest victory, the world No. 1 continued to pile on the numbers in her phenomenal 2022 season in a number of ways:

It was her eighth WTA title of the year, the most since Serena won 11 in 2013. Swiatek’s eight titles this year include two majors (Roland Garros, US Open), four WTA 1000s (Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Rome) and two WTA 500s (Stuttgart, San Diego).

It was her 64th match win of the year, the most since Serena won 78 in 2013. Going into Sunday’s final in San Diego, Swiatek had been tied with Angelique Kerber’s 63 wins in 2016 for the most wins since Serena’s blockbuster 2013 season.

She’s now 11-2 in her career in WTA finals. And she pushed both of the two losses to three sets, falling to Polona Hercog in the Lugano final in 2019, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, and to Barbora Krejcikova in the Ostrava final just last week, 5-7, 7-6 (4), 6-3.

She’s now 24-1 in the United States this year. That includes 6-0 to win Indian Wells, 6-0 to win Miami, 1-1 in Cincinnati (falling to American Madison Keys in the third round), 7-0 to win the US Open and now 4-0 to win San Diego.

... and the third set of the final was her 21st bagel set of the year, the second-most bagels a woman has recorded in a single season since 2000. Serena had 25 in 2013.

There were only two breaks in the first two sets of Sunday’s final combined—Swiatek broke for 4-2 in the first set en route to taking a one-set lead, then Vekic broke for 4-2 in the second set en route to tying the final up at one set apiece.

But Swiatek shifted gears at the start of the decider, reeling off six games in a row.

“It was a really tight match and pretty long,” Swiatek said in her on-court interview. “I think both of us, physically, we felt the intensity—so at the end I really wanted to be the one who played the last ball in, and it happened a few times.”

The world No. 1 also had kind words for Vekic, a former world No. 19 who reached the US Open quarterfinals in 2019, and who beat four consecutive current or former Top 10 players this week—Maria Sakkari, Karolina Pliskova, Aryna Sabalenka and Danielle Collins—en route to the equal-biggest final of her career at the WTA 500 event.

“Donna, we played in 2019, and that was the beginning of my journey on the WTA,” Swiatek said to the Croatian. “I’m happy you’re back and hopefully we’re going to play many more finals. Congratulations on this week.”