Iga Swiatek continues to have issues within her game after exiting Roland Garros in the fourth round.
Swiatek was beaten by Marta Kostyuk 7-5, 6-1 in her earliest defeat at the Paris major since her debut appearance in 2019.
After watching her exit the tournament, seven-time Grand Slam champion Mats Wilander admitted he was disappointed by Swiatek’s performance.
Former top 10 player Andrea Petkovic has also reacted to Swiatek’s defeat, claiming that she is having a similar issue that Alexander Zverev also faced earlier this year.
Andrea Petkovic claims Iga Swiatek is having the same issue as Alexander Zverev
After splitting from Wim Fissette ahead of the clay court season, Swiatek hired Francisco Roig and has also received some advice from Rafael Nadal.
Both Coco Gauff’s former coach Brad Gilbert and Petkovic gave their verdict on Swiatek’s defeat at the Paris major on The Big T Podcast, admitting the questions they had about her performance.
Gilbert claimed that Swiatek needs to have more of a Plan B, highlighting that she had not reached the final of any tournament since the Korea Open in September last year.
While Petkovic spoke about the current dilemma that Swiatek has within her new and old game styles, claiming that this is something Zverev has also been through this year.
“If I had any hair, I would say this is a head scratcher, because Iga lost to herself,” said Gilbert. “There’s no Plan B at the moment. After she loses the first set, takes her eight-minute break, comes back on court and slower, heavier conditions, different than they’ve been all tournament.
“I feel like why not play with a little more patience, where’s the Plan B? You’re the four-time champion here! I felt like, you know, the balls are getting up on her a little bit, she’s taking undue risk and not working the point.
“Now, the theme is, go back to October of last year. That’s nine months, she hasn’t made one final of a tournament and I believe in that stretch only one semi.
“A couple of years ago, she comes on the court and she’s 3-0 up, now I felt like Marta won that match today playing average, because they’re not playing the same player. So results dictate how players’ confidence is against you.”
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Petkovic added, “I agree with you for the most part, I think there are a few issues right now with Iga Swiatek, and I said that about Alexander Zverev earlier this year when he was trying to implement more aggressiveness into his game down under at the Australian Open.
“At times, there were two Alexander Zverev’s on court, right? The new one is trying to play serve and volley and hit a drop shot every now and then, and then the old Alexander Zverev who would retreat back behind the baseline and roll the balls in and hope for the best.
“And the same with Iga, you can see some of the effects that the Spanish school of Francisco Roig and Rafael Nadal already had on her, she was playing with a lot more spin on the forehand, she showed a lot more rally tolerance.
“However, the moment it got really stressful, that’s when she reverted back to the old Iga, the one that we have seen in the last five, six months since October last year, where she turns into a ball basher and when she doesn’t have the rally tolerance.
“One thing that Marta Kostyuk did extraordinarily well today and that she’s doing every single, she takes a very, very aggressive return position. So she stands almost four to five feet inside the baseline…and you could really see Iga Swiatek unravelling from there, because the first service games of Swiatek, she saw what Marta was doing and was rolling in the kicks and just starting the point, you know building the rally and constructing the point and she broke Marta twice.
“She was serving for the set twice and never was able to do it, because then when she wanted the cheap points when the pressure was on, she went for the 120 mile an hour serve, couldn’t make a single first serve, had to go via the second, Marta is standing very close up, she has no time to react and everything unravelled for her there. Kostyuk did an incredible smart job.”
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Where is Iga Swiatek currently in the race to the WTA Finals?
Swiatek has failed to win a title since September, and the only singles tournament she has reached the semifinals of since then came at the Italian Open last month.
This is reflected in Swiatek’s current position in the live race to the WTA Finals, where she is 11th behind the likes of Kostyuk and the retiring Sorana Cirstea.
If Swiatek is unable to improve her form before the end of the season, she will not qualify for the WTA Finals for the first time since 2019, when she was just 18 years old.
She will still remain as the world number three following Roland Garros, but Swiatek is at risk of dropping down the rankings soon.
The Pole now faces a lot of pressure going into the grass court season, with Swiatek being the defending Wimbledon champion, and she also reached the final in Bad Homburg last year.
Swiatek will now have some weeks away from the match court, before she returns to the WTA Tour at the Bad Homburg Open as the top seed.
