Swiatek holds off Rybakina to defend Qatar Open crown

The win also improved her head-to-head record over the Kazakh former Wimbledon champ to 3-2, having lost on all three occasions last year.

Swiatek endured a slow start as she went 4-1 down in a roller-coaster opening set before slowly finding her groove to level things up at 4-4.

After the set went into a tiebreaker, the momentum swung back and forth before Swiatek wrapped up the 90-minute-long set with a well-executed backhand winner.

Rybakina had taken a medical timeout after hitting her own leg during the opening set and that seemed to hamper the Kazakh player as Swiatek wasted no time to take the second set and secure her first WTA 1000 title of the year.