Home soil proves to be a successful stop for Taylor Fritz, Iga Swiatek and Alexander Zverev

WATCH: Iga Swiatek took home her fourth title of 2023 by triumphing at home in Warsaw.

There are certain perks that come with being the No. 1 player in the world at your home event. One of them, in Iga Swiatek’s case, seems to be getting to decide when it’s too dark to play.

The Poland Open was held at Swiatek’s home club in Warsaw, and she won it without dropping a set over the course of five matches. That was hardly a surprise, considering that the only seed she faced was 18-year-old, 71st-ranked Linda Noskova. What was a surprise was that this was her first title on home soil. Last year, when the event was held on clay, Swiatek lost early to Caroline Garcia. This year the surface was switched to a hard court, and she romped through Sunday’s 68-minute final with the loss of just one game to Laura Siegemund.

In 2022, Swiatek struggled to recover after losing at Wimbledon. She didn’t find her top gear again until the middle of the US Open. This year she lost again at Wimbledon, but she’s tasted victory again much more quickly, on a surface that’s relevant to her title defense at the Open.

“I wanted to put it all in and go for it,” Swiatek said. “I’m happy that I did.”

The only hiccup in her title march came in her semifinal against Yanina Wickmayer. The Belgian, a US Open semifinalist in 2009, is now 33 and ranked 93rd. She lost the first set to Swiatek 6-1, trailed 5-2 in the second, and looked sure to be another victim of the Polish bulldozer. But Swiatek got a little tight at 5-2 and 5-3, and Wickmayer seized the opportunity to show off her old athleticism and attacking power; she went toe to toe with Swiatek, saved match points, silenced the crowd, and leveled the set at 5-5. That was too much for Swiatek. Citing the encroaching darkness, she packed up her things and stalked off. Despite their being lights on the courts, Wickmayer and the chair umpire quickly followed.

All’s week that ends well, though, and the next day, beneath a bright new sun, Swiatek finished off Wickmayer in a tiebreaker, and finished the week by celebrating her 15th career title with her family and fans.

As Swiatek was capping off a long-awaited hometown title in Warsaw, Alexander Zverev was trying to do the same in Hamburg. While his final against Laslo Djere took a little longer than Iga’s 68 minutes, he also succeeded, and he also did it without dropping a set over five matches.

“At the end of the day, this is my home, this is where I grew up, and this where I started playing tennis,” Zverev said. “It was incredible for me, incredibly emotional. I can’t describe it in words, I’m just super happy right now.”

This was also Zverev’s first title since coming back from a torn ankle ligament that ended his 2022 season at Roland Garros. His return hasn’t been easy or straightforward. He took a couple of crushingly close losses to Daniil Medvedev in the spring, and went out with something off a whimper at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, to Casper Ruud and Matteo Berrettini. But he’s up to No. 19 in the rankings, and No. 10 in the 2023 race.

While the fans in Hamburg were behind him, Djere, who was playing his first final of the year, didn’t make it easy for Zverev. He was, in Zverev’s words, “the much better player throughout the first set.” The change came when Djere couldn’t convert four break points late in the first set. From there, the German was energized and the Serb deflated. Yet despite the defeat, his advanced age of 28, and his mediocre No. 57 ranking, the potential for more from Djere, at least on clay, seems clear.

“Credit to him,” Zverev said of Djere, “he’s one of the most respected guys on tour, he’s doing all the right things. At the end, I’m just happy that it went the way it went.”

In the arena, the moment was a joyous one for Zverev. But in the media, and apparently in the courts, it was undercut by another set of allegations from an ex-girlfriend. Last week, RTL reported that assault charges made by Brenda Patea, the mother of Zverev’s child, had led to an “application for a penalty order" in Berlin.

Zverev denies the charges, and we’ll have to wait for the ensuing legal process, which could result in a fine, to play out. But it’s not too early for fans to wonder again how much we should be celebrating this emotional victory alongside him.

“I just felt so at home and welcomed here in Atlanta this week,” Taylor Fritz said after his 7-5, 6-7 (5), 6-4 win over Aleksander Vukic in the Atlanta Open final on Sunday. “I'm not from here, but it felt like I was because the support was just crazy all week long and it felt great.”

As Fritz said, he didn’t win his hometown title, the way Swiatek and Zverev did. But he did win his second tournament on home soil in 2023, after doing the same in Delray in February. More important, Fritz started to put a bad second-round loss at Wimbledon behind him.

According to Tennis Channel’s Jimmy Arias, Fritz hadn’t worked as hard on grass this year, believing that his serve would be enough; since then, though, he had buckled back down during a training block earlier this month. The result was three quality wins, over Yibing Wu, Kei Nishikori, and J.J. Wolf. In the final against Vukic, Fritz rebounded after blowing a match point in the second set. The key point in the third was a 27-shot rally at 3-3 that gave him triple break point.

Now Fritz will travel to the Citi Open as the No. 1 seed, with a chance to build more momentum as the summer Masters 1000s begin. That’s a much better place than he was a few weeks ago.