Iga Swiatek was on the receiving end of a bagel set as the Wimbledon champion crashed out of the China Open in a fourth-round defeat to Emma Navarro in Beijing.
Swiatek, who had been on an eight-match winning streak after lifting the Korea Open title last week, lost the final six games of the match after forcing a deciding set as the 16th seed Navarro won 6-4 4-6 6-0 in two-and-a-half hours.
Swiatek had been the top seed in Beijing following Aryna Sabalenka’s withdrawal from the WTA 1000 event but missed the chance to cut the gap to the World No 1 in the rankings.
The World No 2 made 70 unforced errors to 35 winners across the match and was on the wrong end of a 0-6 set for the third time this season, including her French Open semi-final defeat to Sabalenka and a quarter-final match with Madison Keys at the Madrid Open which she overturned to win 0-6 6-3 6-2.
Swiatek had progressed to the last-16 in Beijing after her opponent Camila Osorio retired hurt, with the Pole calling the season “too long and too intense” as she joined the chorus of players criticising the tennis schedule.
Swiatek went from winning the Korea Open to playing the China Open in Beijing, where she received a first-round bye. The six-time champion was a former China Open champion, winning the title on her last appearance at the tournament in 2023.
Swiatek had said the requirements facing players on the WTA were “pretty crazy”, and that fatigue increased throughout the second half of a long season.
“I don't know yet how my career is going to look like in a couple of years,” she said. “The only thing I can do now, when I decided I'm going to play all these mandatory tournaments, is to just take care of my body, take care of the recovery.
“The Asian swing is the hardest part because you feel like the season is going to finish soon, but you still need to push. But yeah, there are a lot of injuries. It is because the season is too long and too intense.”
Navarro will play either fifth seed Jessica Pegula or Ukraine’s Martha Kostyuk in the quarter-finals, with Great Britain’s Sonay Kartal facing 26th seed Linda Noskova on that side of the draw.
Kartal had earlier secured the best win of her career by knocking out the fourth seed and World No 5 Mirra Andreeva in three sets, reaching the quarter-finals of a WTA 1000 event for the first time.
