What's going wrong for Iga Swiatek?
The world number one has been struggling of late, I aim to explain why
Last week I joked that world no.1 Iga Swiatek was in something of a crisis with 3 losses from 6 matches. It’s now at 4 losses from 8 matches after her Round of 16 loss to Madison Keys in Cincinnati. After her exit in Toronto, I chose to remain very optimistic about Swiatek and saw that loss as nothing more than a unique blip. She wasn’t at her best, but she was in swirling wind and it still took 3 hours for Beatriz Haddad Maia to beat her. The Pole’s loss in the US, however, was much more shocking and concerning.
Nothing was working against Keys. She looked devoid of confidence in the 6-3, 6-4 loss and was 5-0, 15-40 before she began to mount a comeback. Her first serve had deserted her all match and the forehand, once her best shot that she dictated every point with, was barely functioning. Swiatek barely put up a fight until she had finally got a game in that second set. She was dejected, frustrated and looked ready to walk off court as soon as she could. It is a far cry from the player that so dominantly won her second grand slam in Paris just 2 months ago.
What is going wrong for Swiatek? Have players just figured her out, is it just that her level has dropped off, or is more there more going on?
I think there are two main reasons Swiatek is struggling: the winning streak and the conditions. We will start with the conditions, because those appear to be hurting her the most.
I wrote last week about how to beat Swiatek and one of my arguments was that your key to beating her was rushing her shots. Her extreme western grip and the heavy top spin she wants to hit with mean she needs time and a higher bounce to set up the forehand properly and get her timing right. She has been extremely successful on clay because of this; the ball is much slower and the bounce higher, allowing her to perfectly set up and dominate points off that wing.
Swiatek still struggles on faster courts. She looked very unconvincing on grass at Wimbledon and in both matches in Cincinnati on the fast hard courts. In these conditions, it is far easier to rush that forehand and cause errors off it.
What has been noticeable in all these matches, especially at Wimbledon, was that her backhand remained relatively consistent still. She hits her backhand a lot flatter and so she had a much easier time adjusting. On the grass, she could rally cross court backhand-to-backhand but any time she tried opening the court up or going for a winner off the forehand side, the ball could end up anywhere. It has been less extreme in North America, but that theme remains.
The other big problem for that forehand is the US Open balls. Yes, we’re getting into this whole balls debate. Swiatek was asked after her win against Sloane Stephens for her thoughts on the US Open balls being used in Cincinnati. The balls the women use are different to the men; the latter use “heavy duty” balls, the women use “regular duty”. Swiatek made her frustrations clear:
Basically the thing is that they are lighter. They fly like crazy…We make more mistakes, for sure.
Swiatek called them “horrible” and it is clear to see why they hurt her more than others. With the balls being lighter, you don’t need to generate much power to get the balls flying off the strings. Players with less power to their game like Emma Raducanu have thrived with these balls.
Swiatek on the other hand hates it because she wanting to hit these big shots with lots of power- she cannot control the ball. The balls appear to favour players who hit flatter and with less power; they get a quicker shot than you would normally with heavier balls and they become much easier to direct.
She can get good strikes on the ball, she showed it in brief spells and moments in this hard court swing, but it is much harder for her to do so regularly. Swiatek wants to be very aggressive, but she needs to pick her moments or else the ball will end up beyond the tram lines on each forehand.
You could see her actively trying to do this at Wimbledon. She had to measure her shots much more, trying to be more precise and careful rather than smashing the forehand with full confidence as she might have done on the clay a few weeks earlier. It does not come naturally too her though, and that’s alright.
There might have been a lot of winning on hard courts this season, but Iga Swiatek is not a natural all-court player. She has certainly made great strides off of the clay in 2022, but I think that incredible 37 match winning streak has warped people’s expectations and perceptions of her to an extent.
Yes, she is still a very, very good player. She is absolutely deserving of the number one ranking which she holds and the titles she has accumulated this year. But, that does not mean she will instantly dominate the entire season.
After Roland Garros, I and many others were rather bullish about her chances at Wimbledon. She might not suit the grass, but she was a former junior champion there and has shown at tournaments like Indian Wells this year she can adapt to conditions that do not suit her. I have realised since then to scale back my expectations somewhat. Swiatek isn’t going to be a Wimbledon or US Open champion just yet, it will take a lot longer for her to adapt to these conditions.
Her WTA1000 titles in Doha, Indian Wells and Miami show us she can be a big threat on a hard court. She has far exceeded many people’s expectations for her in this year with how good she has been on the surface, but that improvement was always going to come in the first half of the year.
All of the hard court events she excelled at- particularly Indian Wells and Miami- are much slower than the court in the second half of the year. If she was going to improve on hard courts, it was always going to be the slow ones that suit her game more. The court speed in Cincinnati and the US Open, combined with the balls, is something she must adapt to and adaptation takes time.
It is very easy to think after a incredible winning run like the one Swiatek just went on that that is her normal level. I do not think the streak nor the current performances of Swiatek are indicative of what her true level is. She overperformed in the first half of 2022, is she underperforming in the second half.
She is still really, really good but that 37 match run was everything coming together perfectly for months on end. Her tennis was brilliant, but the run gave her huge confidence and put defeat in the minds of her opponents immediately. They went out there trying to keep the scoreline respectable; when the mental battle is won before you take to the court, the victory is almost there already.
I think Wimbledon has taken some of that invisible aura away from Swiatek but in her mind and her opponents. She was poor in all her matches and the ending of the streak showed people she is beatable. Swiatek became a mortal again. Opponents now go into matches thinking they have a chance, and with the vulnerabilities in Swiatek’s game of late it’s not hard to unsettle her.
The winning streak spanned 6 titles, 4 of those WTA1000s and one a grand slam. That is extremely mentally and physically exhausting- there was always going to be a drop off in Swiatek’s performances. That drop off is only heightened on surfaces she does not suit.
The world number 1 needs time to learn the grass and how to play with those US Open balls, but I don’t think that was ever going to come this year. It takes a lot of time to develop your game on a new surface, especially ones that are sort of the antithesis of your style. Plenty of great players have lacked any confidence on the grass of Wimbledon and they weren’t coming off a grand slam title and 35 victories before they tried to learn it.
I don’t think she was really in the headspace to learn grass and to an extent to improve on the fast hard courts. Swiatek basically achieved everything she could have wanted to this year in the span of 6 months. She won hard court titles, became world no.1, defended her Rome title, matched (and then beat) the Williams sisters’ winning streaks and got her second grand slam.
That Roland Garros title really felt like the culmination of her dominance. Swiatek started a winning streak at a point in the season with the longest gap between grand slams. All of those wins were dominating the tour before taking it into the slam by which point she really needed rest.
The problem is that the calendar does not give you any rest after the French Open. Wimbledon starts 3 weeks later on a surface polar opposite to clay and then you’re off to the North American hard court swing. She took time off after winning that second slam, but she had to pick the racket up again very quickly. With every other grand slam title, there is more time to rest, recover and reflect on that victory.
Winning Roland Garros a second time and matching Venus Williams’ 35 match winning streak was the crowning achievement for Swiatek. The problem for her is that she still had 2 grand slams and 5 months of the tour still to play. She clearly hit the wall at Wimbledon, she could go no further and win no more.
The second half of the year asks the Pole to learn and adapt again, but she is not ready to do so. Her tennis is not there yet and nor is her mind. It is hard to turn your mind to even more new challenges and learning when her mind and legs are so exhausted from such an intensive 6 month period. Tennis is a gruelling sport already, let alone when you have played over 50 matches before the last slam of the year.
Adjustments and adaptations do not occur overnight. It is very easy to think that because Swiatek improved her hard court game so rapidly that she can learn everything else with that same ease. That winning streak was a once-in-a-lifetime run, not the standard to hold her by.
I still think Swiatek will have a good end to her season, even if it is a more limited schedule. A period of readjustment is required and this is it. Clearly, she has lost a lot of the confidence she had on that winning streak. She rushes her shots, her forehand isn’t working and she looked lost and resigned to her fate against Keys.
Hopefully at the US Open, a couple of wins can help her to gain back some belief in herself. She might not win another title or go deep in tournaments, I certainly don’t expect much from her in New York, but I think she will be ok. This year has already been incredible, regardless of how many losses or poor performances we see from now until November.
Efforts are clearly being made to improve her game, too. It has not been seen often, but she is improving her serve and the changes to it can be seen here-and-there. A lot of the small improvements Swiatek needs to make (particularly the serve) are technical. It is hard to change your technique, especially in the middle of the season. You’re having to unlearn automatisms from your whole career; it often means taking a step back before you can take a step forward.
Even if such changes hurt her in the short term, Swiatek will gain hugely if they can stick. It will not instantly fix her game or see her dominating at Wimbledon, but they will be big boosts that make her life easier on all courts. Weak serves are far more vulnerable on the fast courts.
It might take her a few years to truly feel comfortable with the grass underfoot or with those dastardly different US Open balls. That’s ok. When the last truly dominant player on the WTA was the greatest of all time, your expectations for success can be placed in the same bracket. It is not easy to realise that, even with the historic streak, Swiatek is still human. She has adapted to hard courts, she will adapt to the rest of the tour she does not yet know how to win. Great champions adapt. I think winning Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart, Rome and Roland Garros makes Iga Swiatek a great champion. She will adapt.