By Matt Hill
Most tennis matches I watch on TV or stream I usually forget about in a few months, but sometimes there are those that captivate you and you know you are watching something special.
On Saturday evening in Madrid, we truly witnessed one of the best women’s tennis matches of this decade, if not the best.
Iga Swiatek won one of the classics, holding off several match points and went on to win 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (9-7) at Santana Stadium in a match we will not soon forget.
This match had a little bit of everything but mostly incredible shot making and drama.
After splitting the first two sets, the two top-ranked players in the world played a third set for the ages.
Even though Swiatek is the current queen of clay, winning three Roland Garros before her 23rd birthday, the Madrid court plays more like a hard court, which obviously favors Sabalenka. It showed last year when Sabalenka defeated Swiatek in the final here in Madrid.
The Madrid tournament is not really an indication of how Roland Garros is going to go. Rome this coming week, it is more of a predictor of Roland Garros than Madrid because the court is more like RG and doesn’t have the altitude of Madrid.
A win for Swiatek here would mean more than a win for Sabalenka, because Swiatek is not supposed to win on this court. The fact that Swiatek pulled this off in these conditions probably elevates here from solid favorite at Roland Garros to an overwhelming favorite in Paris.
It looked for most of the third set that Sabalenka had the upper hand and the momentum in this one. Sabalenka’s forehand was lethal in the third set and had a 3-1 lead. This match seemed to be over.
Iga had other plans.
Swiatek immediately broke back, and it was 3-2. That would be the last break of the match as the rest of the set was an absolute battle of attrition.
The tweets on Twitter/X started rolling in on how we were watching one of the all-time classic matches. Some of the people said that this match saved a tournament that especially on the men’s side had been very subpar.
18-time grand slam champion Chris Evert even commented on the high level of this match. Everyone knew this was something incredibly special.
Tennis Channel tennis analyst Andy Roddick commented about the contrast in styles of Swiatek and Sabalenka and how it created such outstanding tennis. I agree with him, it was truly a phenomenal level.
It seems like when Swiatek, Rybakina and Sabalenka play each other, they truly are great matches. I know the rankings do not show it right now, but this really is the Big 3 of women’s tennis and that is no disrespect to Coco Gauff, but when these three are healthy there is nobody better.
With Swiatek serving down 6-5 in the third set, she had to save two Sabalenka match points just to get to the tiebreak but fortunately for her she did.
Swiatek had to save another match point down 7-6 in the tiebreak then rolled off three-straight points to win the match,
It will be interesting to see where history puts this match. Since it is not a major, it probably won’t get the attention like it would have at one of the four biggest tournaments.
Still, if you watched this match you would agree with me that this was an epic. We need to get people, especially in my country, to care about tennis other than four times a year.
There were some classic matches last year on the WTA Tour but this one I believe was better than any of them. The quality of play by both players was off the charts.
This match also shows just how high quality the WTA is right now. Yes, many people tuned out when Serena Williams retired and I totally understand that, but the WTA is in a much better place right now than five or 10 years ago. There are some unreal rivalries and storylines.
I would venture to say that at this moment as far as quality, the WTA is maybe in a better place than the ATP, but we will not touch that debate.
What we can say is we say one of the all-time epics on Saturday and while it is a debate what is the best rivalry in tennis right now, Sabalenka-Swiatek matches never disappoint.
