It looks like Jelena Ostapenko is altogether a different player while facing Iga Swiatek. The Latvian star has faced Swiatek on five occasions and prevailed in all five of them. Earlier today, she showed her dominating run against Swiatek by prevailing over the second seed at the Qatar Open. Ostapenko dominated the match right from the word go and took no time to defeat Swiatek in straight sets 6-3, 6-1. With this, she became the only active player to have faced Swiatek on multiple occasions and kept a winning record. Subsequently, she was over the moon to have reached the summit clash in Doha.

Interestingly, Swiatek is a three-time champion in Doha and won all the previous three titles here. However, she fell short against a spirited Ostapenko this time around and the Latvian star revealed the reason behind her dominating win today.

During the post-match interview, she said, “Thank you guys for coming. I feel that this court has special energy and it is helping me. As I said, I am being very affirmative on this court and so I was pretty confident that I obviously would beat her because we played a lot of matches and I kind of know how to play against her and was focusing on myself and knew what I had to do and I am very happy with the way I am handling my emotions this week and I am so happy to be in the finals.”

Meanwhile, Swiatek had created a unique record at the tournament herself after her quarterfinal win over Elena Rybakina. The Pole became the player with the longest winning run at the tournament with 15 straight victories. However, Ostapenko put brakes on her winning streak and also ended Swiatek’s dreams of winning a fourth consecutive title in Doha.

Despite this tough loss, Swiatek hopes to emulate her idol, Rafael Nadal. The Pole revealed why Nadal is the true GOAT irrespective of the surface.

Iga Swiatek wants to follow in the footsteps of Rafael Nadal

Although Swiatek is one of the most successful active players, most of her wins have come on clay. Statistically speaking, out of the five Grand Slam titles, she has won four at the French Open while the remaining one came at the 2022 US Open. While clay remains her strength, Swiatek also wants to dominate on the hard courts and the grass courts, just like Nadal.

During an interview, she revealed, “Everybody always talked about clay, but like he’s the GOAT (greatest of all time) basically on every surface. Also, winning Wimbledon twice. Not every player can have these results on even one surface. It’s something that people focus on, and I talk about it too because clay is where I have the most fun, but I also like hard courts. I feel like I have my weapons, and I can use them. I want to be an all-surface player, for sure.”

While Swiatek would look to overcome her heartbreaking semifinal loss, Ostapenko would aim to keep her winning run going and lift the trophy in Doha. She will face the winner of the other semifinal between Amanda Anisimova and Ekaterina Alexandrova.