Iga Swiatek has broken new ground on grass.
No. 8 seed Swiatek of Poland is into her very first Wimbledon semifinal after a 6-2, 7-5 quarterfinal victory over No. 19 seed Liudmila Samsonova on No. 1 Court on Wednesday.
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Five-time Grand Slam champion Swiatek, who has spent 125 weeks ranked World No. 1 in her career, needed 1 hour and 49 minutes to overcome first-time Grand Slam quarterfinalist Samsonova. Swiatek remains undefeated against Samsonova, now leading their head-to-head 5-0.
Growth on the turf: This has to stand as Swiatek’s career-best grass-court swing. She’s gone 8-1 on the surface this year — the first time she has attained that many wins on grass in a calendar year.
After not having made a Hologic WTA Tour final for over a year, Swiatek made her first-ever grass-court final two weeks ago in Bad Homburg (finishing runner-up to Jessica Pegula).
Now she has made the final four at Wimbledon for the first time, eclipsing her previous best Wimbledon result, when she reached the 2023 quarterfinals before losing to Elina Svitolina.
This result makes Swiatek the fourth active player to reach the semifinals at all four Grand Slam events, joining three other players who have been World No. 1: Aryna Sabalenka, Victoria Azarenka and Karolina Pliskova.
Match moments: Swiatek had to stave off a break point in the opening game of the match, but she was unstoppable in the rest of the first set. The World No. 4 was a perfect 10-for-10 when she got her first serve into play in the opening frame.
Swiatek methodically eased to a 6-2, 4-2, 40-0 lead, putting herself five points away from a routine win. However, Samsonova made her move at nearly the last possible moment, finding more margin on her rocket groundstrokes. Samsonova came all the way back in that game, pulling back on serve at 4-3 with a forehand return winner.
Suddenly, the second set became a real battle, with some excellent angles from Samsonova forcing errors from the former World No.1. At 5-5, Swiatek had to fight back from 0-30 down to keep herself in front — but she did so with some powerful forehands of her own.
At 6-5, Swiatek at last reached double match point once Samsonova sent a backhand wide. On her second match point, Swiatek fired a return winner to seal victory and become the first Polish woman to make the Wimbledon semifinals since Agnieszka Radwanska in 2015.
More to come…