Iga Swiatek returned to the Billie Jean King Cup team for the first time in a while and made a winning start by beating a player ranked outside of the Top 100.
By nature of her opponent’s rankings, Swiatek was a huge favorite against Simona Waltert, and she really proved it on the tennis court. The match was actually played on a hard court, which is not the surface the Pole favors most, but she’s still one of the best players in the world on it, so there weren’t any issues.
The opening set started with an early break for the Polish no. 1, who, like any player, likes to jump out to an early lead because it makes things a lot simpler. She would actually get broken the next time she served but still managed to break her opponent once more for the 5-2 lead, which became a 6-3 set win.
Waltert is not the strongest of servers, and that gave her quite a bit of problems against Swiatek, who looked to be aggressive from the get-go. The second set opened with an early break for the world no. 1, which was ideal, but the amount of struggle she had in the next game was not.
The second game of the second lasted well over 10 minutes and featured multiple break chances for Waltert, but the Swiss player didn’t get it done. That was the most important game of that set because, after that, Swiatek added yet another game to take a 3-0 lead.
She cruised from there to win the match 6-3, 6-1. It was a crucial win for Poland and an important one for Swiatek, who was very impressive in her first match since the Miami Open exit.
It was also a great return to the Billie Jean King Cup, a competition she skipped over the last few times she was supposed to play.
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