"Really excited" says Swiatek after beating Sakkari for first time

No.7 seed Iga Swiatek of Poland notched a breakthrough win over one of her toughest opponents in the Qatar TotalEnergies Open semifinals on Friday, defeating No.6 seed Maria Sakkari of Greece 6-4, 6-3.

Following the match, Swiatek was very emotional sitting down on her chair and getting overwhelmed by the occasion. After she calmed down and stepped on to do the post-match press conference, Swiatek was more excited than anything else:

"Really excited. For sure I showed consistency throughout the whole tournament, and I'm really happy that I could keep my level of tennis at a really high level."

It was an important match for Swiatke who never defeated Sakkari before and these types of wins bring her a lot of confidence. She said:

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"These matches when I play against players that I really didn't have a good head-to-head before, it shows I did a good job changing that. It's like a brand new start for me. Even though I have been on tour and my opponents are the same, I feel like these tournaments are different. That's really great for me."

On facing Kontaveit, she said:

"I felt like [Kontaveit and I] always had good rhythm maybe on court, and that's why the rallies were long. We were kind of even in everything. I don't know how it's going to be right now, because the last match I played against her was basically before she had that great streak at the end of last year. I'll be ready for anything, honestly. Every match is a different story."