{"id":29188,"date":"2020-10-08T10:21:12","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T14:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=29188"},"modified":"2020-10-08T10:22:32","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T14:22:32","slug":"rampant-swiatek-blazes-past-podoroska-for-place-in-first-slam-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2020\/10\/08\/rampant-swiatek-blazes-past-podoroska-for-place-in-first-slam-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Rampant Swiatek Blazes Past Podoroska for Place in First Slam Final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Before this French Open Nadia Podoroska&#8217;s best showing in a grand slam tournament was a first round loss at the US Open in 2016. The challenge of defeating Iga Swiatek, who has not lost lost more than five games in a match at Roland Garros this year was always a tall order.<\/p>\n<h2>Rampant Swiatek Blazes Past Podoroska for Place in First Slam Final<\/h2>\n<h4>Set 1:<\/h4>\n<p>Even without a full stadium, the weight of the occasion was heavy on the shoulders of both women as they walked on court. Neither had come close to going this deep at a major tournament before. With one match between either of them and a slam final nerves would be unsurprising.<\/p>\n<p>Swiatek, however, displayed no signs of tension or concern. She came out playing the clean, hard-hitting tennis that was too much for top-seeded Simona Halep in the fourth round. With little trouble on her own service games, Swiatek went on the attack regularly on Podoroska&#8217;s serve and quickly took a commanding lead breaking the Podoroska serve yet again to win the set 6-2.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"7_Msov-hQTtRMzpwtNpWiQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1279163276\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'7_Msov-hQTtRMzpwtNpWiQ',sig:'TR0hI3xFD3cCICv9Kd4RfcL_1XMW97h5HpTDxHel2Aw=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1279163276',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Set 2:<\/h4>\n<p>Swiatek showed no signs of letting up at the start of the second set. She broke serve early and with a flurry of short aggressive points quickly took a 4-0 lead. With Swiatek serving for a 5-0 lead, Podoroska finally began to read the Pole&#8217;s serve and crafted four break points before finally converting.<\/p>\n<p>Swiatek broke again in the following game and served out the match, winning the second set comfortably, 6-1. During many points throughout the match, Swiatek moved forward after almost every stroke, closing down the court, creating severe angles and continually pushing Podoroska to find a way around her.<\/p>\n<p>Podoroska, for her part, may have lost heavily, but becoming the first woman to come through qualifying to a French Open semifinal remains a stunning achievement. Swiatek goes on to face either reigning Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin or two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"AjcKq_WUT4tm50Zxtju75A\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1279164691\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'AjcKq_WUT4tm50Zxtju75A',sig:'lDGJAxnbmDdOqC_AaT9RTPtEUrEhWQyGCb64zhzXBgs=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1279164691',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Main photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"0vjxcHqwTRh59HlBLxtkdg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1228956116\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'0vjxcHqwTRh59HlBLxtkdg',sig:'lUr281iKs-DHqx5jzMDuxWhwMZW2Y4BYRV5ey1Njn94=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1228956116',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before this French Open Nadia Podoroska&#8217;s best showing in a grand slam tournament was a first round loss at the US Open in 2016. The challenge of defeating Iga Swiatek, who has not lost lost more than five games in a match at Roland Garros this year was always a tall order. Rampant Swiatek Blazes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2515,"featured_media":29191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[10009,12786,4315,11607],"class_list":["post-29188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-french-open","tag-2020-french-open","tag-2020-french-open-semifinal","tag-iga-swiatek","tag-nadia-podoroska"],"modified_by":"Jack Rossiter-Munley","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2515"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}