Belgian Elise Mertens, the tournament’s No. 13 seed, beat Poland’s Iga Swiatek, the eighth seed, in the quarterfinals of the WTA 1000 hard-court tournament in Beijing. Mertens won 7-6(0) 6-3 to reach the semifinals, api.tennis reports.
The tiebreak that decided it
The first set went to a tiebreak, where Swiatek failed to win a single point: it ended 7-0. Mertens won the second set 6-3 to seal a 2-0 victory in sets. We do not have detailed match statistics, so the score is all we have to go on.
According to rank.tennis, Mertens is ranked 14th with 2540 points. Swiatek is ninth with 3999 points. The player ranked lower came out on top in this match.
Mertens’ path to the semifinals was as follows: in the round of 64, she beat Katie Volynets (6-0 4-6 7-5); in the round of 32, Jelena Ostapenko (6-2 3-6 6-3); and in the round of 16, Coco Gauff (6-3 6-3). Swiatek began her tournament in the second round and beat Xinyu Gao (6-2 6-3), Donna Vekic (4-6 7-6(0) 6-2) and Iva Jovic (6-1 6-3). In her match against Vekic, the tiebreak also ended 7-0, but in her favor.
Swiatek still leads their head-to-head, having won two of their three matches. She won 6-3 6-4 in 2024 and 7-6(2) 6-1 in 2025. Mertens’ only win in the rivalry is this one, 7-6(0) 6-3 in 2026.