Casey Dellacqua has said that Iga Swiatek's win over Coco Gauff at the China Open in Beijing proves that the World No. 2 is still dominant in their head-to-head.
Both Swiatek and Gauff have experienced a lot of success this season. The Polish player defended her title at the French Open and built up 75 weeks as World No. 1 in the WTA Ranking, which is the tenth-longest amount of time in history. However, Swiatek lost the top spot to Aryna Sabalenka after she crashed out of the US Open in the fourth round.
Meanwhile, Gauff soared to victory in New York to win her first-ever Grand Slam title. Two weeks prior to this, she defeated Swiatek for the first time in their eighth meeting on the WTA Tour at the Cincinnati Open, a WTA 1000 tournament that the American also went on to win.
However, Swiatek was able to get her revenge at the China Open last week, where she faced Gauff in the semi-final. This was the latter's first tournament since her victory at the US Open, and she built up a 16-match winning streak ahead of her clash with the second seed.
This time around, though, Swiatek won their encounter 6-2, 6-3, something which acts as proof of her dominance in their head-to-head, according to Australian former tennis player Dellacqua.
"If I’m going to touch on one piece, it’s probably Swiatek beating Gauff. I think we all saw what Gauff was able to achieve at the US Open but I think in terms of domination and in terms of who’s still at the top of the women’s game, you can’t go past Swiatek.
"Particularly at this time of the year she’s still putting in some great performances. She’s still got it over Coco Gauff in terms of head-to-head so it’s great for the women’s game," Dellacqua said on a recent episode of The AO Show podcast.
The 38-year-old also lauded the "great rivalries" in the women's game at the moment and expressed her excitement for the 2024 Australian Open, which is the next Grand Slam on the sport's calendar.
"Some great rivalries evolving and we’ll see what the rest of the year, the WTA Finals is just around the corner and then what we see at AO [Australian Open] in 2024 will be really interesting but very exciting as well," she continued.
Swiatek d. Gauff 6-2 6-3 Iga is the 1st player to beat Coco in 2 months, snapping her 16 match win streak. ✅3rd WTA 1000 final of 2023 ✅7th final of 2023 If you want to put a win streak to the test, put it up against the woman who had a 37 match win streak last year. 🇵🇱❤️
