Indian Wells: ‘Motivated’ Swiatek avenges Australian Open loss to Noskova to reach last 16

Poland’s Iga Swiatek, the top seed, won against No 26 seed Linda Noskova 6-4, 6-0 to reach the last 16 of the Indian Wells at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on Sunday.

Swiatek was 4-2 down in the opening set before winning ten straight games – with just nine points dropped in the second set.

It was some revenge for Noskova’s win in the third round of the Australian Open in January, when she beat the top seed 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

I was kind of motivated to just play better and not do the same mistakes but to improve my game in some aspects.

“We analyzed it after Australian Open and we focused more on what I did wrong,” Swiatek said after her win. “Because we were before, two weeks of training before tournaments in Middle East, so we talked about this match a lot. But honestly, this time it was much smarter to think about how to just play against Linda rather than focusing on my mistakes from that match. But still, my coach kind of watched it because it’s like the best material to have tactics based on. But I wouldn’t say it impacted me like in any negative way. I was kind of motivated to just play better and not do the same mistakes but to improve my game in some aspects.”

“I had to kind of change some negative thoughts that I had into just thinking that I wasn’t thinking about just waiting for my chances,” the Pole added. “I knew that I’m experienced enough to just, you know, hold it together and not really let myself, you know, let these negative thoughts win (smiling). So I just did that. And I think my game, you know, clicked a little bit more. I tried not to make these mistakes from, you know, faster rallies that we had, but actually we had a little bit less rallies, longer rallies later. I just wanted to be consistent and use my advantages in the way this court works with my game.”

Swiatek, ranked No 1, will face Kazakh Yulia Putintseva next.

The 22-year-old Pole defeated American Danielle Collins (6-3, 6-0) in the previous round of the Indian Wells tournament.

In the second round of the Indian Wells tournament, Noskova, ranked No 29, beat Italian Camila Giorgi (6-3, 7-5).

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Indian Wells WTA 1000, other third-round matches (Indian Wells Tennis Garden, hard, USD 9,258,080):

• Beatriz Haddad Maia vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
• Caroline Wozniacki vs. Katie Volynets
• Emma Raducanu vs. Aryna Sabalenka
• Elina Svitolina vs. Emma Navarro
• Caroline Garcia vs. Maria Sakkari
• Anna Blinkova vs. Diane Parry
• Lucia Bronzetti vs. Coco Gauff
• Naomi Osaka vs. Elise Mertens
• Sloane Stephens vs. Daria Kasatkina
• Yue Yuan vs. Caroline Dolehide
• Marta Kostyuk vs. Marketa Vondrousova
• Angelique Kerber vs. Veronika Kudermetova
• Nadia Podoroska vs. Anastasia Potapova
• Anna Kalinskaya vs. Jasmine Paolini
• Madison Keys vs. Yulia Putintseva