As for Fort Worth, it wasn’t a good sign for Kasatkina when, during the warm-up, Swiatek successfully punctuated a pick-up volley with a 360-degree turn. Worse was being broken in her opening service game of their round-robin match in the Tracy Austin Group of the WTA Finals. And while the world No. 8 did well to hold serve and avoid a 0-4 deficit, Swiatek halted any semblance of momentum with a comfortable hold, en route to a 36-minute, 6-2 first set.
About 10 minutes later, Kasatkina was broken at love to fall behind 2-0 And while the conclusion was more than mere formality—she saved three break points—there was never a moment in which the possibility of a comeback seemed viable.
“I use visualization when my technique is a little bit off,” Swiatek, who attributes her success to her mental prep, told Blair Henley on the court after her 6-2, 6-3 win. “It wasn’t like that today.”
Dictating the terms of nearly every rally, and making inroads on nearly every return game, Swiatek overmatched Kasatkina in every way. It will take an inspired effort of aggression to prevent Swiatek from collecting title nine in 2022: something like peak Sabalenka, who can hit the cover off the ball, or the Coco breakthrough we’re approaching but haven’t quite reached.
It will take a complete performance to compete with, as Pegula put it, “a really complete player.”