Sakkari and Swiatek cruise in Doha

Maria Sakkari and Iga Swiatek cruised into the next round of the Qatar Open following victories over Li and Golubic.

Iga Swiatek was the first on the courts with the Polish player taking on the tricky Golubic. The Swiss player has not been playing good tennis for a while but she possesses a very tricky style that tends to give quite a bit of tennis players issues. Swiatek experienced a bit of a roller coaster in this one as she cruised in the opening set with 6-2.

Golubic found some rhythm in the 2nd set with Swiatek committing more errors than usual. Iga was a bit down mentally as well after suffering the loss of serve and lost the set with 6-3. The start of the 3rd set feature solid play by both but eventually, she was able to overpower Golubic one more and cruise to a 6-2 finish.

Maria Sakkari will join her in the next round of the Qatar Open as the Greek cruised comfortably against Ann Li. The American tennis player has played solid overall this year but some issues with consistency still persist. Against Sakkari, she played with a lot of grit but the Greek was simply too much. Sakkari controlled the match rather well.

Li fought hard and actually forced quite a few break points (7). She converted two of those but also allowed herself to get broken 5 times overall and that was simply too much to overcome. Nothing special from either player but enough for the favourite to move on.