Iga Świątek stated she is in “the worst nightmare a tennis player can have” after one of the vital absurd win-streaks in tennis ended with a shock defeat to compatriot Magda Linette on the Miami Open.
Linette, the world No. 50 snapped Świątek’s run of 73 consecutive opening-match wins, which dated again to 2021, in a 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 outcome that left the six-time Grand Slam champion telling reporters that tennis “feels complicated in my head.”
“I’ve always been an over-thinker, but lately it’s just been so intense. It’s hard for me to get rid of many thoughts I have and this used to be my strength,” Świątek stated.
It was March 2019, earlier than Świątek had reached the world’s prime 100, when she final misplaced a match having received the primary set 6-0 or 6-1.
The defeat represents a low level in an up-and-down season for Świątek. Since hiring skilled Belgian coach Wim Fissette towards the tip of the 2024 season, she has had combined outcomes as she works by means of discovering the proper stability between baseline endurance and going for an excessive amount of when below stress. The spotlight was final summer season’s Wimbledon title, however general Świątek has struggled to search out the shape that made her such a dominant world No. 1 for the previous couple of years. Her rating is now No. 3.
Świątek has continuously vented her frustration at her workforce, which incorporates long-term psychologist Daria Abramowicz. This dynamic was significantly obvious towards the tip of final week’s quarterfinal defeat to Elina Svitolina on the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif, which adopted one among her greatest performances of the 12 months: a suffocatingly restrained 6-2, 6-0 win over Karolína Muchová.
This loss to Linette didn’t comply with a latest development of Świątek imploding when issues have gone in opposition to her, which has been worsened by the unreliability of her first serve. Against Linette, Świątek solely dropped her serve twice, however made frequent return errors that prevented her from placing any stress on her opponent, who received simply two video games in their final assembly.
Though the scoreline and the tennis didn’t present it, Świątek stated she skilled the loss as a sort of collapse. Streaks, and the artwork of front-running, have been defining in her ascent to and keep on the prime of the game. She compiled the longest WTA win-streak of the twenty first century in successful 37 matches in a row throughout 2022. Before a defeat to Maria Sakkari at this 12 months’s Qatar Open, she had received 109 WTA 1000 matches in a row after successful the primary set. Between 2022 and 2024, she compiled streaks of 44 and 56 matches in which she didn’t lose after successful the primary set at any stage.
“Unconsciously or consciously it’s hard for me to change things, and then my tennis kind of collapses. So I need to work now to get back from that, because for sure I haven’t felt things like that for like five years,” Świątek stated.
“I’ve always had something that kept me figuring things out instead of dropping so much during matches. So I’ll just get back to work, try to get something positive out of the practices and some confidence back, and try to figure it out.”
Asked to explain her feelings, Świątek stated: “I feel like I carry a lot of expectations, and I can’t really, like, fulfil them right now. I need to get rid of them, because my game hasn’t been good enough to have any expectations. I think I’m a bit confused, but there’s no way but forward, and I’m going to try to just work hard to get back from that. And I know I have it in me; I just lost it for a second: the game and the mentality that I should have on the court.”
Świątek, who throughout an interview in 2025 stated that adjustments to her sport are solely “visible on a bigger horizon,” reiterated that sentiment in a section of her post-match combined zone reported by Bounces.
“You can’t do, like, one huge step and suddenly it’s not going to — there’s no magic solutions. So I guess you need to do it with small changes, but kind of consistently, and keep your discipline.
“And you know, there’s other stuff — I’ll honestly need time to like figure out and to answer some questions, and I’ll see.”
Świątek might profit from an unexpectedly lengthy break earlier than the clay-court season, which is scheduled to start for her on the Stuttgart Open in Germany in mid-April. At the Australian Open in January she spoke about the necessity to skip sure occasions to keep away from bodily and psychological burnout, earlier than withdrawing from final month’s Dubai Tennis Championships. World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka withdrew from the identical occasion, earlier than its match director criticized each gamers for not attending.
Clay has tended to be Świątek’s strongest floor, with the French Open accounting for 4 of her six Grand Slams, although it has masked simply how good — if much less outstanding — her hard-court report is.
She nonetheless misplaced that sense of invincibility on the dust final 12 months, failing to win a title on the floor, and exiting the French Open on the semifinal stage in her first defeat on the match for 4 years.
Świątek will hope it may be a sanctuary this 12 months, as she seems for options.
