Crisis for the Queen of Clay? Coco Gauff thrashes Iga Swiatek in surprise straight sets blitz to reach Madrid Open Final

Coco Gauff has piled the misery on Iga Swiatek who will not defend her Madrid Open title and sits at a crossroads ahead of the second part of the pre-Roland Garros double in Rome in a rampant win.

Gauff has produced her best win of the season by some distance after not being at the starting line seemingly for a lot of tournaments. After fixing her serve issues at the back end of last season, Gauff looked the real deal winning the WTA Finals.

But as Zheng Qinwen and Diana Shnaider even have found out after such a good end to 2024 has to come a fall and Gauff has found that out at times this year. But so has Swiatek losing to Alexandra Eala in Miami, Jelena Ostapenko again in Stuttgart and Mirra Andreeva in Indian Wells.

Perhaps too some of her results this week have been an honest concern, she was bageled by Madison Keys before coming back to win and Shnaider who has shown an uptick as of late but is a perfect opponent for Swiatek on paper came back to push her to the limit.

Gauff though was not giving her a single inch today though as she has now won their last three ties at the WTA Finals, United Cup and now Madrid Open after only winning one game in 12 attempts.

The serve of the American in particular in the first set was dialled in from the word go. She won 100% of first serves and hit 11 winners to only four unforced errors. She converted 3/5 break points while Swiatek didn't get a chance on the Gauff serve due to that 1st serve percentage and hit 13 unforced errors to only five winners in just 33 minutes.

The second set was even worse for Swiatek who continued to fall apart. The forehand of Swiatek in particular was erratic to say the least as she won just two points on her own serve up until 5-0 and again Gauff didn't have any trouble serving out what she needed to.

Swiatek finally got on the board at 5-1 to spare herself yet another bagel in this tournament but Gauff was serving for an incredible win. One she sealed after just over an hour with Swiatek not winning another point. Quite breathtaking. She now faces Aryna Sabalenka or Elina Svitolina in the final.