WHAT HAPPENED: No. 2 seed Iga Swiatek has been cruising through the 2025 US Open draw thus far, dropping just one set to reach the fourth round. There, Swiatek encountered No. 13 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova—who did her best to snap that streak. But the Polish superstar continued her run of quiet excellence, beating Alexandrova, 6-3, 6-1.
Speaking of cruising though, Alexandrova’s stat sheet had been even cleaner than Swiatek’s coming into the match: She lost just 10 games (and no sets) on her way to round four, needing just three hours and 11 minutes to do so.
Still, the tests administered by Swiatek—the six-time Grand Slam champ and 2022 US Open titlest—were bound to be tougher stuff.
And it looked as if the going was tough for 30-year-old Alexandrova from the jump. She was broken in the first game—but then promptly broke back in the second.
With the first jangly games under their belts, the real contest got underway. Alexandrova had a chance to show off her stellar serve. She ranks No. 4 in the WTA ace race, hammering 253 of them so far this year—the most of any female player left in the draw.
For her part, Swiatek struggled on serve in the first set of her prior match against Anna Kalinskaya, with her first-serve-in rate sinking to 37%. But the Pole seemed to have put that stat in the past—and emphatically so. After breaking Alexandrova again, Swiatek consolidated the break at love, tossing in two aces along the way.
The match was just 30 minutes old by the time the favored player earned her first set point. Swiatek would win that point and take the set, 6-3.
Alexandrova has enjoyed some hard court success against Swiatek, having notched wins in Miami in 2024—her first victory over a No. 1 player—and Melbourne’s Gippsland Trophy in 2021. Swiatek owns their overall head-to-head though, 4-2.
Would Alexandrova be able to summon the skills that earned her those successes?
Well, it’s news to no one that Swiatek is an excellent frontrunner. And she started to put that winning-begets-winning mindset on full display, reminding her fans why she was able to spend 125 weeks of her career as world No. 1. By the time she’d grabbed a 4-1 lead in the second set, Swiatek had hit 18 winners (to Alexandrova’s 11) and won 100% of her points at the net (five of five).
Clean, clinical, concise are the best words to describe the No. 2 seed’s performance today. As the match hit the 64-minute mark, Swiatek took the second set, 6-1. Final match score, 6-4, 6-1.