Iga Swiatek, Victoria Azarenka book quarterfinal clash in Adelaide

MATCH POINT: Iga Swiatek defeats Leylah Fernandez in the 2022 Adelaide International.

Former Roland Garros champion Iga Swiatek charged into the Adelaide International quarterfinals, where a fellow Grand Slam winner awaits after Victoria Azarenka powered past Priscilla Hon on Thursday.

Defending champion Swiatek, the fifth seed, looked nearly untouchable as she needed just 74 minutes to fire 30 winners past US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez, cruising into the last eight at the expense of just three games. The Pole didn’t drop serve across both sets, and didn’t face a break point in her 6-1, 6-2 victory.

“I’m glad that I could finish this pretty quickly. I didn’t let go of the focus, I was just in the mood,” Swiatek said in an on-court interview.

“I was pretty stressed, because this was the first match where [I felt] like I was playing a younger girl, which is pretty new for me,” she added, laughing. “I was always the younger one.”

Swiatek will aim to extend her seven-match Adelaide win streak when she takes on the resurgent Azarenka in the quarterfinals. It will be the pair’s second meeting, with Azarenka claiming a 6-4, 6-2 victory in a 2020 US Open third-round match.

To book a place into her first WTA quarterfinal of the year, Azarenka had to dodge a second-set surge from Australian wild card Hon in a 6-3, 7-5 victory. Hon, ranked No. 263, turned heads in her first-round match when she stunned Petra Kvitova in a 6-7(4), 7-5, 6-2 comeback.

But Azarenka, a two-time Australian Open former champion, didn’t give the 23-year-old any opportunity to take the lead in the match. The Belarusian finished 2021 with a run to the Indian Wells final, and she has maintained that momentum in Adelaide. Azarenka was serving up 76% of first serves and generated eight break chances in the match, converting on half of those occasions.

Swiatek and Azarenka join world No. 1 Ashleigh Barty in the Adelaide quarterfinals—the Aussie awaits the winner between sixth seed Sofia Kenin and countrywoman Ajla Tomljanovic. Elena Rybakina, the seventh seed, has also set a quarterfinal clash with Shelby Rogers.