RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — There are no free lunches at the WTA Finals, not when you have the world\u2019s best eight singles players from 2025 all gathered under the same roof at King Saud University Indoor Arena.<\/p>\n
Right out of the box on Saturday night, in the very first singles match, two of the four Grand Slam winners faced off.<\/p>\n
After a prematch snack of fresh strawberries, No. 2 seed Iga Swiatek, the Wimbledon winner, defeated No. 7 Australian Open champion Madison Keys 6-1, 6-2.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Keys, who hadn\u2019t played in 68 days after losing in the first round of the US Open, looked sluggish and her timing seemed off. Coaches will tell you it\u2019s difficult to replicate the intensity of match play in practice.<\/p>\n
Swiatek won 12 of 15 games and 58 of 87 points, converting five of eight break points. It was over in 61 minutes. The 24-year-old from Poland now leads the head-to-head 6-2. Previously, they had split this year\u2019s two matches. Swiatek has won 62 tour-level matches so far in 2025, the most on tour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After winning on the red clay at Roland Garros four times in five years (2020-24), Swiatek lost in semifinals earlier this year to World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka. What followed was a stunning victory at Wimbledon, a slick surface she wondered if she\u2019d ever master.<\/p>\n
One of this year\u2019s initiatives under coach Wim Fissette, Swiatek explained, was playing more aggressively on hard courts. In essence, she accepted more risk to reap greater rewards.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think technically for sure the way I played on faster surfaces, the way I handled sometimes faster balls that were an issue for me in previous seasons,\u201d Swiatek told reporters Friday. \u201cThis was something that I felt improved totally.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso the speed of the serve. I don\u2019t know, I think I was in some kind of a ranking of fifth or something in aces this year. That’s impossible. But my serve improved. I would love for my percentage to always be consistent. That\u2019s the next goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The more immediate target is a title here, to go with her 2023 victory in Cancun. Swiatek recorded her first win in the Serena Williams Group, while Keys may well have to win her last two matches, against No. 4 Amanda Anisimova and No. 6 Elena Rybakina, to advance to the semifinals.<\/p>\n
Keys said she picked up a minor injury during the summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just kept trying to play through it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was just one of those things where I couldn’t ever be 100 percent. Just felt like the best decision for me to have the best opportunity for the Finals was to kind of take some time, get healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keys is participating in her second year-end championship, going back to her initial breakthrough in 2016. Her record is now 1-3.<\/p>\n
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