Iga Swiatek wins third consecutive Qatar Total Energies Open title

Iga Swiatek

Polish player Iga Swiatek, ranked number one in the world, achieved an unprecedented achievement in the Qatar Total Energies Open Women’s Tennis Championship by winning her third consecutive title in the 22nd edition that concluded on Saturday. She beat Kazakh Elena Rybakina, ranked fourth, in two sets.

HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani, Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of Qatar Museums, crowned the Polish champion who won the title and handed her the Golden Falcon, and handed the Kazakh player the second place award, in the presence of Nasser bin Ghanem Al-Khulaifi, President of the Qatar Tennis, Squash and Badminton Federation, and Saad Al-Muhannadi. Tournament Director.

Swiatekwon7-6, 6-2, in a match that lasted about two hours and 20 minutes.

The Polish player became the first player to win the Qatari championship title three times since its inception in 2001, where she won her first title in 2022 by defeating Estonian player Anett Kontaveit 6-2, 6-0 in the final. Then she achieved the second title last year by defeating American Jessica Pegula 6-3 and 6-0.

The achievement of the Polish player has not been achieved by any female player since the American legend Serena Williams achieved it, when she won the Miami Championship title three years in a row: 2013, 2014 and 2015.

By achieving the Qatar Championship title, the Polish player brings the number of titles to 18 in her professional career, which includes four titles in the four major tournaments (Grand Slam), namely threetitles in the French Open in 2020, 2022 and 2023, and one title in the US Open in 2022.

The Polish player (22 years old) began the campaign to defend her title in Qatar, starting in the second round, and won all her matches in two sets without a response, and did not lose any set in the tournament, as she began her participation by defeating Romanian Sorana Cristea, then in the third round, she surpassed the Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova, in the quarter-finals she defeated the Belarusian veteran and winner of the Qatar title in 2012 and 2013, and in the semi-finals she qualified without playing after her Czech competitor Pliskova withdrew due to injury before she won over the Kazakh Rybakina also in two sets.

For her part, the Kazakh player Rybakina (24 years old) failed to achieve her first title in Qatar, and the eighth in her professional career; she only has one major title in Wimbledon in 2022, and she also achieved second place in the Australian Open in 2023.