World No.1 Iga Swiatek booked a spot in her second consecutive Madrid Open final with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over No.18 seed Madison Keys on Thursday.

Poland’s Swiatek needed just 70 minutes to reach her third final of the year and move one step closer to her third WTA 1000 title of 2024. Swiatek is 2-0 in finals so far this season, clinching championship trophies at WTA 1000 events in Doha and Indian Wells.

Swiatek finished runner-up to Aryna Sabalenka at Madrid last year.

American Keys was hoping to extend her successful run in Madrid, having already notched two top 10 wins over Coco Gauff and Ons Jabeur in the previous rounds.

Keys had already proved she could defeat Swiatek — her lone previous win over a reigning world No.1 (in six attempts) was over Swiatek at 2022 Cincinnati.

However, Swiatek took command early and never let up, saving all three of the break points she faced. Swiatek also won 64 percent of points returning the Keys second serve, leading to a 4-for-5 break point conversion rate.

Swiatek improved to 3-1 versus Keys in their head-to-head, and the world No.1 collected her 29th win of the season — only Elena Rybakina has more match-wins than Swiatek in 2024. After a hot start by Swiatek to 3-0, Keys came close to quickly pulling back on serve. The American blasted three fiery forehands in a row to reach double break point on Swiatek’s serve at 3-1.

However, Swiatek found a couple of her best serves of the day to fend off those chances, and the top seed reached 4-1. From there, Swiatek was unchallenged in the opener as she eased to the one-set lead.

The second set progressed in a similar vein. Swiatek moved ahead by an early break, carving a passing winner to lead 2-1. Keys held another break point to pull back on serve in the next game, but Swiatek survived it and retained her advantage.

At 5-3, a huge forehand service return gave Swiatek triple match point. The No.1 seed only needed one of those chances, after Keys sent a forehand long to end the encounter.

Alcaraz upset

Carlos Alcaraz’s hopes of becoming the first player to win three-straight Madrid Open titles came undone as the second seed fell to a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 loss in front of his home crowd to Russian seventh seed Andrey Rublev in the quarter finals on Wednesday.

The two-time grand slam champion was not at his best despite taking the opening set in 41 minutes, while Rublev put in a dominant performance to roar back and snap Alcaraz’s 14-match winning streak at the ATP Masters 1000 tournament.