Iga Swiatek has showered Coco Gauff with extraordinary praise after their battle at the United Cup, a straight-sets victory for the American. After losing to Swiatek in their first seven matches, Gauff has now improved her head-to-head record against the Pole to 5-11.
Billed as the biggest match of the day, Gauff and Swiatek faced on Sydney with the tie at 1-0, after Hubert Hurkacz defeated Taylor Fritz to give the Poles the lead. Gauff had won the previous three clashes against Swiatek, and kept the streak going on Saturday with a solid 6-4, 6-2 win.
Speaking at her press conference afterwards, Swiatek was magnanimous and extended a warm congratulations to the American. She pointed out that the improvement Gauff has made to all areas of her game are ‘visible,’ and emphasized the maturity in the World No. 3’s game now after years on the tour.
“For sure I feel like Coco has improved stuff. It’s quite visible. The matches we played couple years back where most of them were kind of one-sided. I feel like that’s it. She’s also growing in age, more experienced as well,” Iga Swiatek said.
“So yeah, she’s a top player for many years now, even though she started with she was, like, 16, much earlier than most of us do. Yeah, congrats to her basically,” she added.
Unfortunately, Gauff could not get the job done in the mixed doubles tie later on. She, with Christian Harrison, lost to Jan Zielinski and Katarzyna Kawa, allowing Poland to reach the final of the tournament for the second year in a row. There, they will take on Switzerland, with Iga Swiatek set to lock horns with Belinda Bencic and Hurkacz in line to play against veteran Stan Wawrinka.
Iga Swiatek on her upcoming battle against Belinda Bencic at the 2026 United Cup
At the pres conference, Iga Swiatek also spoke about her upcoming final match-up against Belinda Bencic, admitting that it will be a ‘challenge’ for her on Sunday.
At the same time, the World No. 2 hoped to be at her best as well, and make life difficult for the Swiss.
“Seems like Belinda is playing pretty well. We know each other pretty well. It’s nice to see her playing so great after having a baby,” Swiatek said.
“For sure it’s going to be a challenge. She likes to play fast. First two balls will really matter because she’s a heavy hitter. I’ll try to be ready and dictate on my own,” she added.
Swiatek is 5-1 in the head-to-head against Bencic, her lone loss coming all the way back in 2021.
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