Karolina Pliskova, who won her ninth match in the last 10 days against Naomi Osaka, pulls out of Qatar Open to hand Iga Swiatek a passage through to Saturday’s final; watch over 80 tournaments a year, including the US Open, exclusively live on Sky Sports Tennis
Swiatek, who made it 11 straight match-wins at the tournament with victory over Victoria Azarenka on Thursday, will now be bidding to become the first player to win a WTA Tour event three consecutive times since Serena Williams prevailed at the Miami Open in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
Pliskova, the 2017 Doha champion, made it nine match wins in the last 10 days with victory over Naomi Osaka, but her ailing body was unable to recover in time for her showdown with Swiatek.
Four-time Grand Slam champion Swiatek will take on the winner of the semi-final between third seed Elena Rybakina and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Saturday.
