Wimbledon: Iga Swiatek to face Belinda Bencic in semis

London: Iga Swiatek will face Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic  in the second semifinal at Wimbledon on Thursday.

Iga Swiatek’s long-anticipated grass-court breakthrough finally arrived on Wednesday as the No. 8 seed powered past Liudmila Samsonova 6-2, 7-5 to book her place in the Wimbledon semifinals for the first time in her career.

Bencic won two tiebreaks to beat Russian seventh seed Mirra Andreeva 7-6(3), 7-6(2) and reach the semifinal for the first time.

Playing on No. 1 Court, the five-time Grand Slam champion produced a commanding display against Samsonova, a first-time major quarterfinalist. Swiatek took 1 hour and 49 minutes to seal her fifth straight victory over the 19th-seeded Russian, extending her unbeaten head-to-head record to 5-0 as per WTA.

Swiatek, who has spent a total of 125 weeks as World No. 1, now becomes just the fourth active player to reach the semifinals of all four Grand Slams, joining Aryna Sabalenka, Victoria Azarenka, and Karolina Pliskova.

The 23-year-old Pole is enjoying her most consistent season on grass yet, having gone 8-1 on the surface this year. Her previous best Wimbledon result was a quarterfinal appearance in 2023. This year, she reached her first-ever grass-court final in Bad Homburg just two weeks ago, finishing runner-up to Jessica Pegula.

Swiatek started strong, saving a break point in the opening game before dominating the first set. She won all 10 of her first-serve points and broke Samsonova twice to take it 6-2. In the second set, Swiatek led 6-2, 4-2, 40-0, but Samsonova mounted a late comeback, breaking back and pulling level at 5-5.

But Swiatek, with experience and poise, regrouped. Serving at 5-5, she held firm from 0-30 down, then broke Samsonova in the next game to clinch the win. Fittingly, she sealed victory with a forehand return winner — a signature of her grass-court growth. She also becomes the first Polish woman to reach the Wimbledon semifinals since Agnieszka Radwanska in 2015.

On the other hand, Andreeva, 18, fired four aces in the opening set to none for Bencic and there was next to nothing between the pair until the Russian netted a couple of forehands in the tie-break.

Bencic had two break points at 4-4 in the second set, Andreeva saving one and then hitting long to go 5-4 down and leaving the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion to serve for a place in the last four.

Andreeva refused to follow the script, however, and broke straight back to 5-5 before going to 6-5 with 28-year-old Bencic then serving to take the match to another tie-break. Agencies

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