In the final week of last season, Iga Swiatek’s reward for a solid year was a place among the very best at the WTA Finals in Guadalajara. After the highs of winning the French Open late in 2023 and the adjustments she made as her whole world changed, Swiatek had enjoyed a good full season as a champion. But in Mexico she struggled badly. Swiatek lost her first two matches, quickly exiting the event in the group stages.
Back then, it still felt like the improvements needed for her to command the hard courts as she had done clay would take some time. Instead, almost a year later, she is a different player.
Swiatek started the season with an unexpected run to the Australian Open semi-finals and she has now won four titles on hard courts this year alone: three WTA 1000 titles and her first US Open title on Saturday
The advances she has made are particularly notable when comparing the title she won in New York on Saturday with her first, two years ago. In October 2020, Swiatek burst into the spotlight by playing at her destructive best for two weeks of the autumn French Open, commanding an absurdly high level from start to finish. She lost just 28 games on her way to the title – and not a single set
But while that tournament demonstrated the greatness she was capable of when conditions were favourable and confidence was high, it said little about the key qualities required to be a serial winner. Those weeks of playing your best tennis, when everything is flowing, are rare; the greatest champions are just as proficient at grinding out wins when not at their best. Her time in New York this year has been a clear example of the latter.
One of the dominant themes heading into the US Open was the lighter balls used at the tournament for women’s matches, almost entirely thanks to Swiatek’s complaints about them. She said that while she feels perfect on clay, she still did not have full faith in herself at the US Open.
Her success, then, rested on accepting that she would make more mistakes, that on the faster surfaces she had to take more risks earlier in the point. She knew that doubts would continue to follow her on this surface and there was little she could do about it.