Iga Swiatek and her opponent Friday night at the National Bank Open presented by Rogers, Eva Lys, shared a nice moment at the net when their third-round contest ended.
Lys, according to Swiatek, light heartedly told the Pole that she was happy to get more games on the board than when they last faced off.
“She's a really nice girl with a lot of down-to-earth humour, so I appreciate that,” said Swiatek.
“At first, I didn't hear her. These exchanges at the net are always kind of, like, awkward. I like her humour, so for sure it was funny.”
Unfortunately for Lys, her tally of games still wasn’t enough to derail the Swiatek Express.
The recent Wimbledon champion eased past the German 6-2, 6-2 to set up a match against a player she beat on the grass at the All England Club, Clara Tauson.
When Swiatek and Lys last battled this year in the fourth round at the Australian Open, the former conceded a mere one game.
Through two matches this week playing at home, sort of – at IGA Stadium – Swiatek has relinquished a total of eight games.
“I feel like I played two solid matches, and Eva today also, even though the score looked like it's one-sided, it wasn't that easy,” said Swiatek.
Indeed, it wasn’t as lopsided as the score suggested. The two embarked on several lengthy exchanges and Lys won a pair of them in spectacular fashion.
Yet Swiatek made the world no. 69 cover ample ground throughout and rarely erred on finishing balls.
In Tauson, she knows she gets a bigger ball striker who can also change the pace. Swiatek won their clash at Wimbledon in straight sets but the Dane started her 2025 with a 15-4 record, all on hard courts.
“That's going to be the first time I play a heavy hitter here,” she said. “So I think I'll need to adjust to that.
“When we played (at Wimbledon), I feel like I was solid enough for her to miss a bit more, but I know that she's this kind of player that when she feels it, she's going to play well.”
The foe Swiatek beat in the Wimbledon final, Amanda Anisimova, also didn’t linger as she followed Swiatek on Centre Court.
Anisimova in a hurry, too
Anisimova collected her first win in three attempts against 2021 US Open winner Emma Raducanu, crushing balls from the baseline to prevail 6-2, 6-1 in just over an hour. The American hit 29 winners or an average of about two per game.
The in-form Raducanu – limited to five winners as Anisimova dictated – had the same sort of look on her face as Lys did when she shook hands with her friend.
“I was coming into this tournament feeling confident,” Anisimova, the finalist in Toronto last year, told the crowd. “I had a good season and I feel like my game really suits the hard courts here. I feel like I played really well.”
A third night match also went by quickly, as world no. 13 Elina Svitolina raced past Washington finalist Anna Kalinskaya in under an hour, 6-1 ,6-1. In two hard court wins over Kalinskaya this year, Svitolina lost just five games.
Countering the speedy matches, Grand Slam finalist Karolina Muchova beat 2021 Olympic gold medalist and the 2015 winner in Toronto, Belinda Bencic, 6-7 (2), 6-2, 6-3.
Plagued by a left wrist injury, Muchova has won back-to-back matches for the first time since Indian Wells in March.
Photo: Sarah-Jäde Champagne
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