Tennis legend details why Iga Swiatek reminded her of Serena Williams in Beijing

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• Serena Williams

Pam Shriver thought Iga Swiatek pulled a Serena Williams in her Beijing match against Coco Gauff. In August, Swiatek suffered her first loss to Gauff when the American handed her a 7-6 (2) 3-6 6-4 loss in the Cincinnati semifinal.

Last week in Beijing, Swiatek and Gauff met for the first time since their Cincinnati match. Swiatek, a four-time Grand Slam champion, got her revenge as she routinely handled the business against Gauff and claimed a 6-2 6-3 win in the Beijing semifinal.

With that win, Swiatek improved to 8-1 against Gauff. "You can think about the great players through the years at the top, who lose a spot or two in the rankings... They tend to respond pretty well. You think about how Serena Williams responded to having losses, the 'Revenge tour' that she may have been on at certain points in her career.

I think Iga took that, when she faced Coco. I mean Coco obviously had the wrong side of that set after set after set, was able to come out on top in Cincinnati. And then Iga, you know she would've gone into that next match after the loss totally motivated to figure some things out," Shriver said on the Inside-In podcast, via Sportskeeda.

What Swiatek did differently against Gauff in Beijing?

After suffering a straight-set defeat to Swiatek, Gauff was asked to explain what was different compared to their Cincinnati match.

Answering the question, Gauff highlighted that Swiatek was consistently aggressive this time. "I think she played a little bit more aggressive or, like, consistently aggressive compared to Cincinnati. I think Cincinnati I got a little bit more errors than today.

Honestly, like, it's tough for me to assess the match right now because my mind was just not 100% in it. I feel like I need to watch it and really know what's going on. Usually I'm able to assess the matches right away, what I did right, what I did wrong.

I think my focus, a lot of it, was just on what I was feeling, not more so what she was doing or what I was doing. I was just trying my best to get as many points as I could. I had the feeling when I called the physio it was going to be a tough match for me to try to be able to win," Gauff said. Swiatek and Gauff could meet again before the season ends as both are scheduled to play at the WTA Finals in Cancun.