Poland’s Iga Swiatek won her second Indian Wells title by defeating Maria Sakkari in another strong performance. In a rematch of their 2022 final, the World No.1 earned a dominant win over Greece’s Sakkari 6-4, 6-0 in just 69 minutes. Swiatek now has 19 career titles, including her second title of the year after winning in Qatar last month. Swiatek, the top-seeded player, lost just 21 games in six matches during the 12-day tournament. Swiatek earned her 20th match win of the year, which leads the WTA Tour.
Swiatek became the 10th woman to win multiple titles in Indian Wells all-time. In her sixth career meeting with Sakkari, Swiatek won the last eight games of the final from 4-4 in the opening set. Sakkari hasn’t defeated the Polish star since 2021.
Swiatek sped out of the gate in Sunday’s final, taking a 3-0 lead after 15 minutes as No. 9 seed Sakkari battled to find her timing and missed more balls than she made. But the Greek, who won four three-setters among her five victories to reach her fourth career WTA 1000 final, rallied from 0-30 down in the fourth game, and it quickly appeared that the match was changing. Sakkari won three straight games to tie the first set at 3-3 and kept close until 4-4, but Swiatek broke serve again to seal a hard-fought first set. Her enthusiasm carried over into the second, where she dropped only five points, and she scored her third bagel set in her six wins for the event.
I’m really proud of myself. I’m super happy. I mean, even though this tournament looked like, the scores, maybe I had everything under control, it wasn’t from the beginning to the end so easy. So, I’m happy I could improve during the tournament. I felt really good on the last two matches, a big amount of confidence, Swiatek said after clinching the title.
It’s an amazing thing to be standing here again. Thank you for really making this feel like home, she added. Swiatek has made a remarkable comeback following her unexpected third-round exit at the Australian Open in January. She now hopes to continue her form by winning the Miami Open, where in 2022 she became only the fourth woman to complete the ‘Sunshine Double’, after Steffi Graf, Kim Clijsters, and Victoria Azarenka.
Meanwhile, World No.2 Carlos Alcaraz defeated the Russian World No.4 Daniil Medvedev in straight sets 7-6 (7-5), 6-1 to defend his Indian Wells title.
