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NEW YORK — There are many things that Iga Swiatek, the world No. 1 and the queen of tennis the past two years, is very good at.
Not letting her stress and frustrations spill into her game? She would be the first one to admit that part is a work in progress. Life inside Swiatek’s head these days can feel like skidding across a knife’s edge at high speed.
On a day like the first Tuesday of the 2024 U.S. Open, it takes every ounce of will for her to stay upright. She committed 41 unforced errors in surviving a 6-4, 7-6(6) battle against Kamilla Rakhimova of Russia, who was 6-3 up in the second set tiebreak.
Little joy and no celebration greeted the win. Just a very hot, red face and too many thoughts about what had unfolded.
Iga Swiatek looked at odds with herself during her first-round match in New York (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
Two days later, on the same court, against a similarly overmatched opponent in Japan’s Ena Shibahara, Swiatek eased to one of her trademark bagel-and-breadstick combos, the kind of casual beatdown that has taken her to almost 120 weeks at the top of women’s tennis.
What gives?
In recent years, Swiatek has become more guarded about the inner workings of her mind. It is the part of the tennis player’s self that has never come naturally to her. Her brain is too active. She is not one of those souls blessed to exist without an inner monologue. She hears every word she thinks.
“Usually, I don’t feel well on court when I have too big expectations,” she said Thursday, explaining her shifting mindset for the two matches. “Because of that, I make wrong decisions on court. So I just try to reset and to remember that I don’t have to play perfect tennis all the time. It’s good if I make some mistakes, but I should just focus on improving, and that’s it.”
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This psychological tug-of-war between expectation and improvement unfolded to its fullest over the two days.
Tuesday’s Swiatek was a player desperate to show how perfect she could be, trying to win point after point by firing lasers at the lines. When she hit too hard and lost a point, she’d often try to hit the ball even harder on the next one, seemingly aiming straight at the line instead of close to it on the first chance that arose. Rakhimova wasn’t exactly giving her looseners. Swiatek responded to short invitations to attack and high-quality, deep forehands with equal and indiscriminate power.
This disregard for her opponent’s qualities and total belief in her own excellence has gotten Swiatek to where she is. In recent months, it has also held her back from going further.
The women’s world No. 1 rarely defers to what is coming over the net from her opponent (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
‘Being first on the ball’ is the phrase players sometimes use to describe that sort of aggressive style. There is a thin line though between aggression and impatience. Aggression is a strategy. Impatience is an emotional reaction — one that often has its roots in wanting to escape from an unpleasant situation.
Swiatek has been talking about feeling cranky for the best part of two months. Ever since she left Paris in June, her fourth French Open title and fifth Grand Slam title of her still-young career secured, she hasn’t felt quite right.
She was already running on fumes then, having won both Masters tournaments in Madrid and Rome before the French Open. She confessed to doing a bad job of recharging before Wimbledon, which takes place on grass, the surface she likes the least and on which she performs the worst. She lost there in the third round — and was the Swiatek who sees an opponent peaking and fails to change her strategy before it’s too late to do anything about it.
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After a brief respite, she headed back to Paris for the Olympic tournament, also at Roland Garros, where she was something far beyond the overwhelming favorite. She played and largely existed as though she had the weight of Jupiter on her shoulders, then descended into tears when she lost in the semifinals to eventual gold medalist Zheng Qinwen of China, barely able to talk about the error-fest she had endured on her favorite court.
When she won the bronze medal a day later, she spoke about how the intensity of the schedule and the pressure of playing for her country, Poland, with a chance to win something that only comes along every four years had frayed her. “I still have so much work to do to understand myself and what’s happening to me sometimes,” she said.
Swiatek took a week off, but when she reappeared in Cincinnati for the American hard-court swing, the wear and tear of the schedule and what it does to her and so many other players was still top of mind. The sport has to change, she keeps saying. Stop making so many tournaments so long and mandatory. If it doesn’t, burnout is inevitable.
It happened to Swiatek’s predecessor at the top of the sport, Ash Barty, who retired, at age 25, in March 2022. Swiatek said in June that she didn’t know how long she would last. She threw out the number 28. She’s 23 now.
More days like Thursday will help.
More matches when she remembers that playing at the peak of the peak of her powers isn’t always possible or necessary — and when she remembers that the peak of her powers is higher than anybody else’s anyway. More matches when she accepts that she can be at her best when she isn’t trying to make every shot the last one, playing points rather than trying to dominate them.
Her hero is Rafael Nadal — the king of hitting six shots so he can win the point on the seventh.
Against Ena Shabihara, Iga Swiatek showed the patience that she seemed unable to harness in the first round (Kena Betancur / AFP via Getty Images)
She didn’t try to smother Shibahara on Thursday afternoon in a particularly obvious way. But she ended up doing it anyway, easing into points, leaning on the prodigious topspin that only really she has in the women’s game. Every time she plays this way, it makes the times she doesn’t stranger.
Two years ago, when she won this tournament, her only Grand Slam title other than those four in Paris, she said that she learned she could win without playing perfect tennis. She barely felt comfortable through any of her seven matches during that fortnight. Swiatek likes nature and quiet. So New York City isn’t really her thing. Too busy. Too noisy.
She is staying at a hotel close to Central Park this year. Maybe that has helped.
Whatever it was she did in the 48 hours between Tuesday and Thursday, it worked. Only she knows whether she can sustain it for another nine days and five matches. In the year’s final Grand Slam, just about everyone is dragging from a too-long season which still has a couple months to go.
The tennis is inside her. She knows that, and everyone else does too. The only question is whether her mind will let it come out.
“I kind of have the tools,” Swiatek said Thursday, “but sometimes it’s just hard to use them.”
(Top photo: Kena Betancur / AFP via Getty Images)
