After winning the French Open in June, Iga Swiatek hasn’t had any noteworthy performance as of now. Although she made quite a few deep runs into her next tournaments including the SF run at the Paris Olympics, Swiatek failed to deliver when it mattered the most. Recently, she withdrew her name from some of the tournaments, citing “fatigue” and “personal reasons“. Are these the only factors behind her recent struggle or is there something else behind this? Swiatek’s childhood coach, Artur Szostacko dissected the possible reasons behind her recent struggles during a recent interview with SPORT.PL.
Several theories and speculations are coming up surrounding this issue. However, according to Szostacko, “Iga did not report any injuries, for me, it is a classic mental breakdown. In this aspect, she now lacks strength, the defeat in the semi-finals of the Games cost Iga a lot. Perhaps Iga needed this reset, time will tell.” Iga Swiatek has time and again spoken about the physical and mental fatigues that are always involved with these tight schedules. Several tennis experts also believe that these are some of the real reasons behind such a high number of withdrawals in recent tournaments. What does her childhood coach think of her extended absence from the Tour?
According to Szostacko, the body and head of an athlete are always connected and if one is not working the other also starts failing. Now, if we take a look at what Artur Szostacko is hinting as the possible reason behind her recent struggle, we’ve to track back to the Olympics. In the Paris Olympics, Swiatek was regarded as the favorite to win the gold medal. However, he was defeated at the hands of China’s Qinwen Zheng in the SF. Before this meeting, the H2H scoreline was 6-0 in favor of the Polish superstar. However, Zheng’s two-set (6-2,7-5) triumph over the world number one stunned the tennis world.
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Zheng broke Swiatek’s 25-match winning streak on the Parisian clay. On the other hand, Iga Swiatek broke down in tears after her straight-set defeat to the Chinese in one of her favorite venues. Swiatek hadn’t lost any match at the Stade Roland Garros since 2021 before that. Perhaps this is one of the main reasons behind her emotional outburst. Swiatek missing out on the ‘golden opportunity’ was a massive disappointment for not just her, but also for the Polish fans. Everyone expected her to win the gold medal. Even Aryna Sabalenka was a bit surprised with Swiatek’s loss in the SF. Sabalenka said, “I expected Iga Swiatek to win a gold medal. It’s Paris. That’s her place.”
Later on, however, Iga Swiatek beat Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in the bronze medal match to clinch the first Olympic medal for her nation at the Olympics. However, she still couldn’t forget her disappointing loss in the SF. During an interview with CLAY, Swiatek stated, “I’ve never felt like this before. Yesterday I experienced one of the hardest defeats of my career…I cried for six hours yesterday, if I hadn’t won (the bronze) I would have cried for a week.” These statements from Swiatek indicate how much that SF loss might have cost the world number one.
Iga Swiatek was 4-0 up in the second set of the SF match, but then Qinwen Zheng made a strong comeback and won six of the last seven games sealing the deal in the blockbuster clash. After the match, Swiatek had a short interaction with the journalists, and during that interaction, she said that she was a bit disappointed with her backhand shots in this match. Apart from that, she added, “I was not technically well positioned because I was so tense and the fact that I played back-to-back matches. We didn’t have time to adjust that and work on that.“
She clearly wasn’t too pleased with matches coming so thick and fast during the Olympics. However, when a reporter later on asked her about losing the 4-0 lead, she couldn’t hold her tears while expressing her disappointment. “Well… basically I just blew it. (Crying),” said the world number one. Making a comeback from this loss was never easy, but she played outstanding tennis in the bronze medal match to ensure she didn’t come empty-handed.
How did Iga Swiatek manage to pull things back on track so quickly? In reply to this question, she confessed that the pressure of expectations impacted her performance during the SF match. She revealed that she had altered her approach in the bronze medal match. “I thought I had to play for myself and that’s how I faced the bronze match in a better way,” that’s exactly how she managed to get back to winning tracks.
Now, the question is how can Iga Swiatek make a strong comeback yet again? Well, Artur Szostaczko has some advice on this. According to him, “She (Swiatek’s psychologist) should show her knowledge and skills. It is not a problem to say how phenomenal someone is when everything works for the player. I have said many times that Iga is extremely talented.” All he now hopes is that her team finds a quick remedy to this problem and helps her end the year on a high note. Do you think Iga Swiatek can end the year as the world’s number one or will Aryna Sabalenka have the last laugh?