MELBOURNE – Iga Swiatek is dominating her Australian Open opponents the way no one has at Melbourne Park since Maria Sharapova in 2013.
Swiatek's latest lopsided win came via a 6-1, 6-2 scoreline in the quarterfinals against No. 8 seed Emma Navarro on Wednesday.
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The No. 2-seeded Swiatek not only has not dropped a set so far in the tournament, but also has lost a grand total of only 14 games as she seeks her first title at Melbourne Park and sixth Grand Slam trophy overall. Sharapova was the last woman to reach the Australian Open semifinals having dropped fewer than 15 games.
“She does everything with 100% conviction and intensity,” Navarro said about Swiatek. “She has a different style of movement and play. It’s tough to not be sort of affected by that and not feel like, ‘OK, I have to do everything at the same speed that she’s doing it.’ So that was something, for sure, I felt a little bit today.”
Swiatek will face No. 19 Madison Keys of the U.S. on Thursday night for a berth in the final. The other women’s semifinal is No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, the two-time defending champion, against her good friend, No. 11 Paula Badosa.
Keys, whose best showing at a major was getting to the title match at the 2017 U.S. Open, was a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 winner against Elina Svitolina and is into her third semifinal in Australia.
“Iga is tough to beat because she has a lot of spin, kind of naturally, on both sides. She’s a good server. She’s a good returner. She moves incredibly well,” Keys said. “The biggest thing that makes her so difficult to beat is, because she moves so well, if you miss your spot just slightly, she has enough time to recover, and then the point goes back to neutral.”
There's an American in the men's semifinals, too: No. 21 Ben Shelton got that far in Melbourne for the first time with an entertaining 6-4, 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (4) win over unseeded Lorenzo Sonego of Italy. At his news conference, Shelton was critical of some of the people handling post-match TV interviewing duties.
Shelton was a semifinalist at the 2023 U.S. Open and now will meet No. 1 Jannik Sinner, the defending champion, on Friday.
Sinner was relentless against No. 8 Alex de Minaur, the last Australian male in the bracket, on Wednesday night, beating him 6-3, 6-2, 6-1.
“He is one of the best servers on tour,” Sinner said about Shelton. “Lefty. Different rotation of the ball ... hopefully, I'm ready.”
The other men's semifinal Friday is Novak Djokovic vs. Alexander Zverev.
Against Navarro, Swiatek benefited from a no-call of a double bounce on a point she won in the second set. Because Navarro continued playing the point and did not immediately stop to ask for a video review, she wasn't allowed to have the sequence checked.
Either way, Swiatek's dominance was pretty clear, even if she was modest about things afterward.
“Well, I think it was much tougher than the score says,” said Swiatek, a 23-year-old from Poland. “Emma’s a fighter ... and I wanted to stay focused and keep my intensity.”
Swiatek has won four of five career matchups against Keys, 29.
“Madison is a great player and experienced, so you never know,” Swiatek said. “I'll be just focused on myself.”
Using a new racket this season, Keys is on a 10-match winning streak, including a title at a hard-court tune-up event in Adelaide. Her run to the semifinals in Melbourne includes victories over two past runners-up at the Australian Open, Danielle Collins and Elena Rybakina.
Keys' past losses in the semifinals in Melbourne came against eventual champions Serena Williams in 2015 and Ash Barty in 2022.
“I think I play a little bit smarter for sure ... probably a little bit less fearless,” Keys said.
Svitolina, a three-time Slam semifinalist, was in control during the first set. But Keys made some tactical adjustments, including looking for more opportunities to get to the net. She won 23 of the 26 points when she moved forward and ended up with a total of 49 winners, 23 on her powerful forehand side.
The one difficulty Keys had was getting going in her return games. But she finally converted her seventh break chance to lead 4-2 in the second set.
Keys said: “Getting to the point where I’m starting to appreciate my career for what it has been, and it doesn’t have to have a Grand Slam in order for me to look at it and say, ‘I’ve done a really good job, and I’ve really left everything out there.’ Now, while that’s obviously still the goal, there have been periods of my career where it felt like if I didn’t win one, then I hadn’t done enough.
“That kind of took a lot of the fun out of the game, and there were times where it felt paralyzing out on the court because it felt as if I needed it to happen, instead of giving myself the opportunity to go out and potentially do it.”
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AP Sports Writer John Pye in Brisbane, Australia, contributed.
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