He saved three match and championship points, but ended up spilling onto the clay of the Manolo Santana Stadium to release with tears the tension of more than three hours of relentless battle. Twelve months later, Iga Swiatek took revenge against Aryna Sabalenka in a final of the Mutua Madrid Open that, perfectly, is among the best matches of the twenty-two editions of the tournament and of its ten individual matches (7-5, 4-6, 7 -6 [7]).
The Pole joins the cast of seven No.1s who top the Madrid WTA 1000 record, such as Dinara Safina, Petra Kvitova, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Simona Halep and Sabalenka herself. Furthermore, with 35 games, this has been the longest final of the tournament, surpassing the 33 of the one that the Romanian won in 2017 against the French Kristina Mladenovic (7-5, 6-7[5]6-2).
The match started with an exchange of service breaks, first by Sabalenka and Swiatek responded, and then the forces were balanced serve by serve until the eleventh game. It was the No.1 who took the lead (7-5) with a definitive cross-court winning drive, the fourteenth winner of her personal account, which put an end to 61 minutes of battle.
The Pole managed to contain her rival’s reaction at the start of the second set. Sabalenka managed to break in the second and fourth games, while Swiatek responded in the third and fifth (3-3). Once again the second favorite in the draw managed to unbalance the balance with a break in the tenth (4-6) by connecting an accurate parallel forehand winner, her twenty-fourth winner in the match, after 52 minutes.
To the delight of the fans, the long exchanges of blows were going to be resolved, as in five of the last six finals in Madrid, in the third round and with the artificial light of the spotlights to compensate for the sunset in the Spanish capital.
The last round started the same as the previous ones. Sabalenka broke serve in the fourth game and Swiatek immediately counterbreaked in the fifth (3-3). Once again, serve by serve, the excitement and level of play grew in the Manolo Santana Stadium until reaching the tie-break. Before, the defending champion had two match points against the rest in the eleventh game and another in the tiebreaker. But the No.1 acted as such in an excellent exercise of survival (7-6 [9-7]).
The tennis player from Warsaw won the ninth WTA 1000 of her career at the Caja Mágica and the third of the season, after Doha and Indian Wells, raising her record to 21 victories in 23 matches played in tournaments of this rank.