Iga Swiatek escapes disaster against Kalinina in Indian Wells

Iga Swiatek lost a very close first set but won the next two against Kalinina to advance at the Indian Wells Masters.

Iga Swiatek has been one of the best performing players in 2022 and the Polish player is a serious contender to winning the event. It looked difficult to achieve for Swiatek after the 58 minute first set concluded. The Polish player was up several times in the first set but the Ukrainian battled back each time and eventually, Kalinina won the set with 7-5.

The 2nd set was quite different and despite lasting 34 minutes, it was anything but close. Swiatek finally found her rhythm and started unloading from the baseline and it's safe to say that Kalinina did not know what to do to counter it. Game after game passed until the set finished with a bagel for Swiatek. She continued applying similar pressure in the 3rd set and we almost saw another bagel.

She was up 4-0 and served for the 5-0 lead when she lost her serve after a bit of careless play. Eventually, she was able to break Kalinina once more to take a 5-1 lead after which she closed it out with 6-1. A superb comeback for Swiatek who broke her opponent 9 times overall but she also lost her own serve 5 times which is something she will need to improve moving forward.