Aryna Sabalenka defeating the world number one, Iga Swiatek in the SF of the Cincinnati Masters is like a bolt from the blue to some. However, for another group of fans, this was quite predictable. They think Swiatek is superior on clay courts and Sabalenka on hard courts. Prior to their match, a surprising statistical tie emerged: both players boasted an identical hard-court title count of 12. A finals matchup against Jessica Pegula could see her extend her winning streak to 13 titles. While the tennis world has been quick to criticize the world number one, her fans have rallied behind her.

Sabalenka has reached her first Cincinnati final after defeating top-ranked Swiatek in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3, on Sunday. The Belarusian will climb to world number two next week, just ahead of the US Open. Despite a challenging match interrupted by rain, Sabalenka prevailed, describing the victory as a breakthrough moment in her career. “I finally broke the barrier,” Sabalenka said of her place in the final.

Swiatek held a dominant 8-3 head-to-head record over Sabalenka, with all previous matches played on clay. However, Sabalenka’s straight-set victory has significantly narrowed the gap between the two rivals. And after Swiatek fell short this time around, a renowned Canadian news agency, Tennis Connected, put up a tweet on their official account stating:

Swiatek arrived here after clinching the bronze medal for her nation at the Paris Olympics. She started the tournament with a hiccup against France’s Varvara Gracheva but made a strong comeback in the next. Then again, she took three sets to beat Mirra Andreeva in the QF. Overall, her performance hasn’t been up to the mark in Cincinnati this year. 

After seeing this post Swiatek’s fans came out in numbers to label this post as extremely “disrespectful” and “pathetic” and that she has achieved a lot over the last few years and she deserves some respect.

Tennis world revolts against unfounded Iga Swiatek attacks

Iga Swiatek has time and again debunked the myth of her being a clay court player. Relating to this debate, just a few months ago, we saw her questioning back to a journalist, “Have you played on each of these surfaces?” Clearly, she wasn’t too impressed with their takes on all surfaces play quite similar these days. She believes each surface has its own specialty. Although most of her major triumphs have come on clay courts, we must not forget she also won the US Open in 2022!

Good and bad days are part of the journey. Fans feel it’s not right to judge a player with a few “bad” results. One of them wrote, “Woah one bad day at the office and people saying she’s not good enough lol if semifinals of almost all 1000 events across the past couple of years isn’t enough then idk what is.” Not to forget, the world number one reached the semis of Australian Open in 2022(same year she won the US Open).

Iga Swiatek has won 152 matches and lost only 42 matches on the hard courts so far in her career. That makes the win percentage of 78.4% and that’s in fact quite impressive for a player who is called, the “Queen of Clay“. Relating to her past records, another fan wrote, “In real tennis terms there’s no particular point to that question. And Swiatek has proven herself on hard courts as well.“

She beat Jessica Pegula in last year’s WTA Finals by 6-1,6-0. Reflecting on her sheer dominance in that hard-court tournament, a fan said, “Remember the WTA finals when she dominated last year? Remember the Sunshine Double? Iga has twice as many hard court 1000s as Aryna and is 3 years younger. Do journalists ever look at data?” For those who are unaware, Swiatek became the only fourth player to win the Sunshine Double in 2022. At the age of 20 years and 10 month, she was also the youngest to pull off that feat at that time.

Some of the fans went on to claim, “You know you’re talking about the current titleholder of three hard court 1000s and the WTA Finals (with a 3-0 record in round robin), right? You know she has more points from hard court tournaments than anyone else, right?” The fan further added, “Right now, she’s the only player with multiple current 1000 titles (and three of her five are on hard). Tomorrow, there might be a player with two current hard 1000 titles who has never made a slam semi on any surface. In 2022, Iga made the SF at AO and won USO.“

Before this match, Swiatek had won 29 out of her 31 matches on the hard courts. Swiatek has won 22 singles titles in her career so far, including the 2023 WTA Finals and ten WTA 1000 titles. Reflecting on the dominance of a five-time Grand Slam winner in the tennis world in the last few years, one of the fans wrote, “But Beijing, Doha, Indian Wells, WTA Finals, and the other 1000s where she’s so consistently going deep on hard courts? It’s a combination of dominating on clay and being top-tier on hard. If it was exclusively all clay, she wouldn’t have this big a lead on the top spot.“

Swiatek has won a Grand slam and four WTA 1000 titles this season, two out of those five have come on hard courts(Qatar Open and the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells). Do these claims surprise her at times? Well, recently during an interview she revealed, “No, it doesn’t surprise me but I think people just tend to focus on our biggest results like grand slams and they forget about other stuff.”

We all know Swiatek’s dominance on clay courts, but is it right to label a player like that considering her stature when time and again she has proven herself in the tennis world? Share your thoughts on this in the comment box.