Coco Gauff Dominates Iga Swiatek To Reach Madrid Final

American Coco Gauff reached the Madrid Open final for the first time after knocking out defending champion Iga Swiatek 6-1, 6-1 in Thursday’s semifinal in about an hour.

It was Gauff’s only fourth victory against Swiatek in as many as 15 meetings, and her first on clay in six attempts on the surface.

The 21-year-old will face either Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina or world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in Saturday’s final, as she aims for her 10th career singles title.

The title clash mark Gauff’s first WTA 1000 singles final on clay.

“I felt great out here on the court today,” Gauff said after the match at Caja Magica.

“It was much different to my first match on this court in the first round, and I feel better every time… I honestly think clay is one of my better surfaces, so I felt that if I can beat her on hard [courts]

, then I can beat her on clay.”

“I think the mentality that I had the whole match… I was aggressive and played with margin. Maybe it wasn’t her best level,” added the fourth seed, who was near-flawless in her performance.

“For me, it was just making sure my level stayed the same. In the second [set], I raised it.”

How Coco Gauff Outclassed Iga Swiatek

Gauff broke Swiatek’s serve three times in the first set and twice in the second, totally overpowering clay-court specialist Swiatek, who has won the French Open four times.

Gauff lost only two points on her first serve and finished with six aces. The 2023 U.S. Open champion won 57 of 83 points and did not face a break point. She finished with 18 winners and only four unforced errors.

Swiatek, on the other hand, was credited with seven winners and 21 unforced errors.

The Pole, who recovered from losing the first set 6-0 to Madison Keys in the quarterfinals, looked rattled against Gauff and struggled with frustration and unforced errors, as she succumbed to defeat in 64 minutes.

Swiatek has been nearly unbeatable on red clay. Only Steffi Graf (.750) has a higher win rate against WTA Top 10 opponents than Swiatek (.700) in the previous 35 years.

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Asked by reporters to walk them through what happened, Swiatek said: “I couldn’t really get my level up. Coco played good, but, yeah, I think it’s on me that I didn’t really move well, I wasn’t ready to play back the shots with heaviness. With that kind of game, it was pretty bad.

“I think I pushed kind of with my head for more than I even should, tennis-wise. Today for sure everything kind of collapsed, both tennis-wise and I feel like I wasn’t even in the right place with my feet before the shots.

“I wish I would have moved better, because I think that would get me any opportunity to bounce back, because this is usually what happens.”

Although Swiatek holds an 11-4 edge over Coco Gauff in their head-to-head meetings, the American has now beaten Swiatek three straight times since the end of 2024.