The world’s top women’s player, Iga Swiatek, was far from her best on Tuesday afternoon, but it was still good enough to squeak past unseeded Kamilla Rakhimova in straight sets 6-4, 7-6 (8-6) at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, much in part to her saving triple set point in the second-set tiebreak.
The 2022 US Open champion from Poland faltered following a dominant start against the Russian, Rakhimova, who is currently ranked No. 104 in the world.
After winning the first four games of the first set, she lost three in a row — largely in part to seven unforced errors during that stretch — to spark a bit of anxiety from the top seed’s camp. She would, however, win two of the last three games to take the first set.
“At the beginning, good,” Swiatek said after the match. “Then I got a little bit tight… I was trying to get back to my game.”
Laboring to a 5-3 lead in the second set, Swiatek appeared in control before Rakhimova went on a surprising run of three straight game wins to take a 6-5 lead. The Russian did not lose a single point in the ninth game to cut her deficit to 5-4 before breaking Swiatek in the 10th game, capped off by an unforced error from the top seed to knot things up.
Rakhimova then took the unlikely lead after three straight errors from Swiatek to finish off the squandering of a 30-15 advantage in the 11th game.
In total, Swiatek committed 41 unforced errors on the afternoon in a performance that continues an unsettling trend of down play. She admitted after the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris that she felt as though there was a hole in her backhand.
“I’ve just been trying to adjust to the court,” Swiatek said. “This time I wanted to feel how it is at Arthur Ashe and I think I’m going to get more and more rhythm.”
Some of that rhythm returned to avoid a third set, taking the 12th game to force a tiebreak for the match.
In the race to seven points (one must win by two to advance), Rakhimova jumped out to a 6-3 lead before ultimately running out of gas. She missed long on two forehand attempts to get Swiatek back within one before a pair of unforced errors relegated to an expected first-round exit.
