Swiatek, who arrived at the WTA Finals with a new coach, hadn’t played a match since losing to Pegula in straight sets in the U.S. Open quarterfinals in September.
“Even though I played a lot of those (practice) matches, I kind of forgot for a while how it is to feel all those things, a bit different stress and emotions,” Swiatek said. “For sure, I needed some time to adapt. The most important thing was that even though it happened, I managed to fight through that. And was patient enough to wait to get better.”
Swiatek rallied from 3-0 down in the second set to turn it around against Krejcikova, who has been hit by injuries and had played only 29 matches coming into the finals. Seven of them were victories at Wimbledon.
On Saturday, top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka eased to a straight-set victory over Zheng Qinwen in the opening match of the finals in Saudi Arabia. Fourth-seeded Jasmine Paolini of Italy beat fifth-seeded Elena Rybakina in the other Purple Group match.
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AP tennis:
