‘That wasn’t easy’ – Iga Swiatek battles past Ekaterina Alexandrova to reach first Madrid quarter-final

A relieved Iga Swiatek said ‘that wasn’t easy’ after earning a gruelling three-set win over Ekaterina Alexandrova to reach the Madrid Open quarter-finals for the first time.

The world No. 1 battled to a 6-4 6-7 (3-7) 6-3 victory in two hours, 25 minutes to set up a last-eight clash with 27th seed Petra Martic of Croatia.

“That wasn’t an easy match,” Swiatek said after a contest that went on until after 1am local time in the Spanish capital.

“In the second set, I had the lead and I lost it, so for sure it wasn’t easy, but I’m pretty happy that I could reset in the third.

“I was ready, I got a break pretty early, so overall I’m happy with the performance.”

Swiatek got off to a shaky start as she fell 3-1 behind in the opening set, but she responded magnificently by winning nine of the next 11 games to go 6-4, 4-1 up.

The Pole served for the match at 5-4 in the second set, but Alexandrova saved a match point before breaking her opponent and levelling things up in the tie-break.

An early break for Swiatek in the decider set her off on the right track, and she finished strongly to hold off any chances of an upset.

In reaching the quarter-finals, Swiatek becomes the first player to reach this stage of eight consecutive clay court events since Simon Halep did so on 10 occasions between Bucharest 2016 and Madrid 2019.

Her next opponent Martic earned an impressive 6-3 7-6 (7-1) win over 11th seed Barbora Krejcikova to reach the last eight in Madrid for a second time.

The winner of their match will face Jessica Pegula or Veronika Kudermetova in the semi-finals.

On the other side of the draw, Maria Sakkari faces Irina-Camelia Begu and Mayar Sherif is up against second seed Aryna Sabalenka.