DUBAI: There's a new-found solidity at the top of women's game, not seen since Serena Williams dominated the Tour for well over a decade until her maternity break in 2017. At the Dubai Duty Free Tennis championships, a WTA 1000 Series event, top-seeded Iga Swiatek, blistering off the ground, further endorsed it this week.
Swiatek, 21, who rolled into the title round with a convincing 6-4, 6-2 win over American teenager Coco Gauff on Friday, is up and away in the front of the pack on the ranking points scale. An indent of almost 5000 points ahead of the second-ranked Belarussian Aryna Sabalenka. The 2-6 positions – Sabalenka, Jessica Pegula, Ons Jabeur, Caroline Garcia and the teenager Gauff – in that order, are separated by a total of about 2000 points. Then there is a third tier of players capable of weighing in with an upset result every now then like Czech Barbora Krejcikova, the surprise winner at the French Open two years ago.
Late on Thursday, Krejcikova rallied from 0-6 and a breakdown in the second, to put out the Australian Open champion Sabalenka in the quarterfinals.
"Why do you need consistency?" the 27-year-old Czech countered minutes after delivering the shock result at the DDFT, almost like it was anathema to her. "There are so many good players. Every single week one of us can play better than the rest of the field. Then the next week, the next one one will play. When I see players playing well, it motivates you, it motivates the other girls."
"Maybe earlier, in the last couple of years, there wasn't that much consistency," she said, adding, "I feel like we are just veryclose (in level). Each of us can beat anybody. That's how it is. I also find it interesting, it's not boring, not the same person winning all the time. Unless it was Iga last year, she was winning everything, but that was for four months."
Gauff, who turns 19 next month, pegged the consistency among the leading ladies to maturity.
"Ifeel like people are maturing, their game is also maturing," Gauff, the world no. 6, said. "We had a little gap between Serena's generation and maybe a little bit the generation above me. I definitely think it comes with people getting older, with Iga, Aryna, Elena. We're all a couple years apart from each other."
"I think it's fun. It makes it interesting when there's consistency," Gauff argued, underlining the old order. "That's kind of how other sports are structured. You know which teams are going to win, maybe. It also puts pressure on the people at the top and makes it more ambitious for people going into it, because you want to beat this person because they're so consistent, at the top."
Fair to say that consistency is a barometer reading on the health of a sport. "It makes the game exciting. I'm glad to be part of it," Gauff said. "I hope I can stay consistent."
Fair to say that consistency is a barometer reading on the health of a sport. "It makes the game exciting. I'm glad to be part of it," Gauff said. "I hope I can stay consistent."
