Iga Swiatek: A year since 37-match winning streak started, can world No. 1 go again as she bids to win WTA Dubai?

February 22, 2022 wasn’t the day where it all started for Iga Swiatek, but in many ways it was. This time last year, Swiatek was not the star name on the WTA Tour. Ad Sure, she had won the French Open in super impressive fashion in October 2020, won in Adelaide at the start of 2021, and dismantled former world No.

1 Karolina Pliskova 6-0 6-0 in the final of the Italian Open that year, but as she prepared to play the first WTA 1000 of the season in Doha, she was at No. 8 in the rankings and the week before had lost to Jelena Ostapenko in the last 16 in Dubai. WTA DubaiSwiatek storms into Dubai last-16, Garcia and Sakkari beaten18 HOURS AGO Perhaps she would have been picked out as a contender for the title, although most of her best performances up until then had been on clay rather than hard courts.

The biggest names in the Doha draw were Aryna Sabalenka, the top seed in the absence of Ashleigh Barty, 2021 French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova, and Petra Kvitova and Garbine Muguruza, who had contested the previous year’s final. That Swiatek did not have top billing was evident as her opening match of the tournament against Viktorija Golubic was played on one of the outside courts and was watched by a sparse crowd. How many watching that day would have thought they would be witnessing the start of the longest winning streak on the WTA Tour this century? How the streak started This time last year, the WTA Tour was Barty’s domain.