Swiatek, his historic streak and the sad precedent of Osaka

Iga Swiatek has established herself as the new queen of women’s tennis after the retirement of Ashleigh Barty. The Pole, who this season has a balance of 32-3, already accumulates 23 wins in a row that have helped him win the title in the WTA 1,000 in Doha, Indian Wells and Miami and in the Stuttgart Tournament in addition to putting Poland in the finals of the Billie Jean King Cup.

Some titles that together with the announcement of the withdrawal of Ashleigh Barty, have allowed Swiatek to consolidate herself as number 1 in the world in a WTA ranking in which she is already 2,000 points ahead of her closest rival, the Spanish tennis player Paula Badosa.

The Ghost of Osaka Landmark

With these 23 victories, Swiatek joins the club of tennis players who have been able to achieve at least 23 consecutive victories on the WTA circuit since 2000 and in which names of great figures such as Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka, Justine Henin or Naomi Osaka, the last to achieve it.

However, Swiatek knows the risk of breaking the streak of results and if not, ask the aforementioned Osaka. The Japanese tennis player also managed to chain 23 consecutive victories between August 2020 and March 2021 before Maria Sakkari stopped that streak in the quarterfinals of the Miami tournament. Since then, Osaka entered a spiral of poor results and another series of extra-sports problems that reduced her tennis. However, the Japanese player has regained sensations in recent tournaments as shown by the milestone of reaching the final of the WTA 1,000 in Miami precisely against Swiatek, who hopes to avoid the bad streak that Osaka went through to become the dominator of women’s tennis.