React useEffect goes in infinite loop while fetching data

I am trying to fetch some data inside my component using useEffect hook and it is going in infinite loop. I am using this react tutorial page and this race conditions page for reference. Here is my code.

function AppNew () {
  const [matchData, setMatchData] = useState(null)
  const [matchesLoaded, setMatchesLoaded] = useState(false)

  useEffect(() => {
    let active = true;
    
    const responseMatches = axiosInstance.get("api/matches/")
        .then(responseMatches => {
            if (active) {
                setMatchData(responseMatches.data);
                setMatchesLoaded(true);
            }
        })
        .catch (error => {
            throw error;
        })

    return () => {
        active = false
    }
  });
  
  console.log("match data: ");
  console.log(matchData);

} 

The API returns valid data in about 10ms. console.log statements for matchData keep writing the data to the console infinitely.

useEffect(() => {    
const responseMatches = axiosInstance.get("api/matches/")
    .then(responseMatches => {
        if (active) {
            setMatchData(responseMatches.data);
            setMatchesLoaded(true);
        }
    })
    .catch (error => {
        throw error;
    })
},[]);

dependency array is missing as a second parameter of useEffect