Tennis - Qatar Open - Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex, Doha, Qatar - February 14, 2025 Latvia's Jelena Ostapenko celebrates after winning her semi final match against Poland's Iga Swiatek REUTERS/Ibraheem Al Omari
(Reuters) -Three-times defending champion Iga Swiatek was bundled out of the Qatar Open by Latvian Jelena Ostapenko, who beat the Polish second seed 6-3 6-1 in the semi-finals on Friday to set up a final showdown with American Amanda Anisimova.
The 23-year-old five-times Grand Slam champion Swiatek, who on Thursday became the player with the longest winning run at the tournament with 15 straight victories, looked a shadow of her usual self as she went down to world number 37 Ostapenko.
Meanwhile, 2017 French Open champion Ostapenko continued her commanding record over Swiatek and now leads the Pole 5-0 in head-to-head.
Ostapenko, 27, got off to a confident start by winning the opening two games before taking a 4-2 lead en route to taking the first set. She produced an utterly dominant display in the second set to race to a 4-0 lead before wrapping up the win in just a little over an hour.
"I was pretty confident that I will win against her. We played a lot of matches and I know how to play her. I'm really happy with how I'm handling my emotions this week. Just so happy to be in the final," Ostapenko said.
Ostapenko, who had said the partisan fans at the tournament were disrespectful for jeering her throughout her quarter-final match as she eased to a straight-sets win over Tunisian Ons Jabeur, celebrated her win over Swiatek by looking at the crowd.
World number two Swiatek, meanwhile, threw her racket mid-way through the second set as her woes against Ostapenko continued.
In the second semi-final, world number 41 Anisimova stormed past Russian world number 26 Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-3 6-3 in one hour and 30 minutes to reach her second WTA 1000 final.
(Reporting by Pearl Josephine Nazare in BengaluruEditing by Toby Davis and Christian Radnedge)
