It’s happening again.

Iga Swiatek, even plagued by a sore throat and a runny nose, is off on another dominant run.

The World No.1 defeated No.5 seed Coco Gauff 6-4, 6-2 in the semifinals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. She’s dropped all of 14 games in her six-match romp through the Middle East, which includes the title last week in Doha.

Later, 2021 French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova was a 6-1, 5-7, 6-0 winner against No.3 Jessica Pegula. Can Krejcikova possibly stop Swiatek in the Saturday final (7 p.m. local, 10 a.m. ET)? Certainly. The precedent exists.

Dubai: Swiatek speeds past Gauff to reach 15th career final

Krejcikova beat Swiatek in a memorable Ostrava final last October. Playing at home in the Czech Republic, Krejcikova rallied to take a 5-7, 7-6 (4), 6-3 contest that required a draining 3 hours and 16 minutes. It was only the second time Swiatek had lost a Hologic WTA Tour final -- and the first in three years.

Krejcikova has now beaten the No.2- and No.3-ranked players in succession. Does that bring extra confidence in a showdown with No.1?

“Definitely,” Krejcikova said in her postmatch press conference. “I think my game is improving with every match and I’m really happy with that. Tomorrow is going to be new match, new day, different player, different day.

“I just have to sleep well today and just try to prepare the best way because I’m going to be playing the best player in the world.”

Krejcikova, 27, has the tools to cope with Swiatek’s fluid, flexible game -- something she partly attributes to her doubles success. She’s won 15 titles, mostly playing with Katerina Siniakova, 10 more than on the singles side. But, it’s worth noting, when she finds herself in a big singles spot she typically delivers.

Swiatek improves to 6-0 vs. Gauff to reach Dubai final

Krejcikova, once ranked as high as No.2, has won five of her past seven matches against players ranked among the Top 10. Moreover, Krejcikova is a gaudy 9-1 in WTA semifinal matches. She is also 5-1 in singles finals since the start of May 2021.

She is buoyed by her comeback victory over No.2 Aryna Sabalenka in the quarterfinals -- the first such comeback in 29 matches played at the WTA 1000 level. To beat No.8 Daria Kasatkina in the second round, she saved four match points. Then she bounced defending champion Ostapenko. Her win over Pegula was her third Top 10 win of the week. 

Swiatek will be Krejcikova's third Top 5 opponent in a row. Although Swiatek holds a 2-1 head-to-head advantage over Krejcikova, the matches have hardly been one-sided. Both came in 2021, with Swiatek winning in Miami 6-4, 6-2 and Rome -- 3-6, 7-6 (5), 7-5. Swiatek has yet to play a three-set match this year.

Swiatek took over the mantle as the WTA Tour’s No.1 player when Ashleigh Barty retired last March and backed up that title. After losing to eventual champion Jelena Ostapenko in her second match in Dubai, Swiatek swept to six straight titles -- Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart, Rome and Roland Garros. She won 37 consecutive matches.

This year is starting to look a lot like Groundhog Day. Swiatek’s victory over Gauff left her 6-0 against the 18-year-old American.

Swiatek attributes her success to a reset and aggressive training block back home in Warsaw after losing in the fourth round of the Australian Open.

Krejcikova tops Pegula to return to Dubai final

“I think just the work that I’m doing is kind of clicking and it’s paying off,” she told reporters. “You can never honestly say why you’re playing well this week and why not the other one. But I feel like it’s little bit easier playing on slower hard courts comparing to what we played in Australia. I just feel like I can do a little bit more, and I’m kind of using that.”

Swiatek’s achievements are beginning to accumulate into a larger context.

She’s only the second player to reach six WTA 1000 finals before turning 22 (Caroline Wozniacki) since 2009.

Swiatek, after two quarterfinal walkovers in two weeks, also has the advantage of being far fresher. While all of her matches the past two weeks have been straight-set victories, Krejcikova has endured a total of four maxed-out matches against talented players -- Veronika Kudermetova, Kasatkina, Sabalenka and now Pegula.

“Tennis is such a complicated sport that you're never going to know why or what happened,” Swiatek said. “I feel like if you work hard and you give 100% on every match, your chances are going to come.

“So I'm pretty glad that I can play dominant tennis right now, but I'm really ready for every match and I'm really concentrated and motivated. I think if I wouldn't be, I would just have different scores. It's just work.”

When a reporter tried to sleuth out what worked so well against Swiatek last fall, Krejcikova smiled.

“I’m definitely not going to tell you what I’m going to do tomorrow, how I beat her in Ostrava,” Krejcikova said. “I have to say, it’s always a huge challenge. I love challenges. I expect it’s going to be really difficult because she’s in a great form and she’s playing well.

“I believe that I’m playing well, as well. I think that I can find a plan that can push her on a back leg. I believe that I have a chance.”