Iga Swiatek matches Martina Hingis milestone after narrow Madrid Open victory

Iga Swiatek matches Martina Hingis milestone after narrow Madrid Open victory

Iga Swiatek battled past Diana Shnaider to book her place in the 2025 Madrid Open quarter-finals, and in doing so, achieved a remarkable career milestone that puts her alongside tennis legend Martina Hingis.

The five-time major champion prevailed 6-0, 6-7(3), 6-4 against the world No 13 in Estadio Manolo Santana in the last 16 of the WTA 1000 clay tournament.

Swiatek dropped only seven points as she took a one-sided opening set in just 22 minutes, but Shnaider hit back as she won a tight second set on a tiebreak.

The world No 2 sealed a hard-fought win against the 21-year-old Russian after securing the only break of the third set in the fifth game. She remains undefeated in matches where she won the first set 6-0, improving her record to 78-0.

The match was initially scheduled to be played on Monday, but the major power outage in Spain and Portugal caused play in Madrid to be suspended.

After her victory over Shnaider, Swiatek was asked what she did during the blackout.

"Honestly, it's good that in Madrid the sun is setting pretty late," the 23-year-old said in her on-court interview. "So yeah, as soon as it got down and it was dark, they put the energy back in our area.

"So honestly, I just chilled and used that time to not think about what I should do. Should I, I don't know text or contact, like there was no signal, so basically no one used their phones. It was nice, I liked it."

With her win, Swiatek has now progressed to the quarter-finals at each of the last 17 clay tournaments she has entered.

The Pole is the first woman to reach this many consecutive quarter-finals on clay since tennis great Martina Hingis - who made 19 in a row between 1997 and 2002.

Swiatek is also the only player to feature in the quarter-finals of all five WTA 1000 tournaments held so far in 2025.

The 23-year-old, who is the reigning Madrid Open champion, has not gone beyond the semi-finals of an event since the French Open in June last year.

Her triumph against Shnaider also saw her improve her record against opponents ranked in the top 20 to a stellar 83-32 (72.2 percent).

Since 1990, only Steffi Graf and Serena Williams have a higher win rate against players in the top 20 of the WTA Rankings than Swiatek.

Swiatek will face world No 5 Madison Keys in the last eight in Madrid in a rematch of their Australian Open semi-final - where Keys won after saving a match point.

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