Iga Swiatek has built a reputation for handing out bagels. She needed only 57 minutes for her 6-0, 6-0 victory over Amanda Anisimova in the 2025 Wimbledon final, and it was the first double bagel in a Wimbledon final since 1911. She has won 33 6-0 sets at the Grand Slams, and 39 at the WTA 1000 level, which is the highest by any player in the history of the format.

Her opponents have long had a good idea of exactly what a bad day looks like against her, whether it’s Karolína Plíšková’s 46-minute double bagel performance in the Italian Open final in 2021 or a number of sets that ended before they started. That’s why Friday’s quarterfinal in Beijing was so surprising when Swiatek fell to Elise Mertens 7-6(0), 6-3 in 1 hour and 50 minutes, and the scoreline of the first set effectively captured the shock.

The first set was played break-free, but the tiebreak was one-way traffic. Mertens won it 7-0, marking the first time Swiatek has lost a tiebreak on the main tour on love. The numbers for the rest of the game were no different.

The 30-year-old won 33 of her 38 first-serve points, hitting 24 winners, and committed 11 unforced errors, while never facing a break point. Only one other player has done it in the main draw of a WTA event, excluding Grand Slams, team events and Olympics, against Swiatek, and that was Coco Gauff in Madrid in 2025. The head-to-head now reads 2-1, with Swiatek having won both of their previous encounters.

“Sometimes you just grow into a tournament,” Mertens said in the on-court interview. 

The 30-year-old Belgian has certainly done that in Beijing. She beat Jelena Ostapenko, Gauff and Swiatek in consecutive rounds, which makes three Grand Slam champions in a row. It is only the second time she has beaten multiple major winners at a single WTA event, after Doha in 2019, when she knocked out Angelique Kerber and Simona Halep. She now meets home favourite Zheng Qinwen in the semifinals, her first at WTA 1000 level since 2021.

Swiatek did find a late flicker of hope, reaching 0-30 in the final game, but Mertens won the last four points and closed out the match. That finish could encapsulate the day even more than any statistic, and it presents a much greater challenge for Swiatek than one poor match.

Swiatek’s WTA Finals charge stalls

The WTA Finals race has been uncomfortable for Iga Swiatek all season. She has competed in all last five editions so far, and won the title in Cancun in 2023. This time she sits 10th in the Race to Indian Wells on 3,584 points, 650 behind eighth-placed Linda Noskova, the reigning Wimbledon champion, and Marta Kostyuk is ninth, just ahead of Swiatek. Beijing was supposed to fill that gap, but with the defeat, she’s left with little room for error. 

Muchova and Elina Svitolina were defeated in their own quarter-finals, so the entrance was open, but the former Polish world No.1 couldn’t get through. This has been a strange season by her standards, as she has won only one title so far came at the Canadian Open, and has failed to win a Grand Slam for the first time in five years. Mirra Andreeva and Noskova, the Roland Garros and Wimbledon champions, have now clinched their places at Indian Wells. That tightens the race for the remaining spots.

Swiatek won the China Open on her debut in 2023, and this year she survived a tough opening test against Donna Vekic before easing past Iva Jovic 6-1, 6-3. A year ago she lost in the fourth round to Emma Navarro after a 6-0 final set. This time she reached the quarterfinals, only to meet a player who simply outplayed her.

Her next chance comes in Wuhan, where a title is worth 1,000 points. With the Finals starting on 8 November, every remaining event now looks like a must-win for the Pole.