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On Sunday, the Polish tennis player Iga Swiatek (read “shviontek”) was reconfirmed champion of the Internationals of Rome, one of the most important tennis tournaments in the world, which she had already won in 2021. In the final she clearly beat the Tunisian Ons Jabeur, with the score of 6-2, 6-2.
For six weeks, Swiatek has risen to first place in the world rankings, demonstrating an exceptional maturity in the game and superiority over her opponents, especially when compared to her age: in fact, she will have to turn 21 next May 31, during Roland Garros (one of the four Slams , the most important tennis tournaments of the season), of which she is also the huge favorite.
In Rome he won without losing a single set, obtaining the fifth consecutive victory in the last five tournaments in which he participated, four of which were WTA 1000 (the prestigious tournaments second in importance only to the Slams). You have achieved these results thanks to a streak of 28 consecutive games won, an enormity that has not been seen since 2013.
This and other records that Swiatek has recorded in the last period are comparable only to those achieved by some of the strongest players in tennis history: Serena Williams for example, who before her was the only player ever able to win more than four WTA 1000s in one season (reached five in 2013). At the moment there don’t seem to be any tennis players able to undermine her dominance on the circuit.
wow ????@iga_swiatek | #IBI22 pic.twitter.com/AUeA8Z1Hhz
– wta (@WTA) May 15, 2022
Swiatek was born in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, in 2001. Her mother is an orthodontist, while her father is a former rower who participated for Poland in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. She started playing tennis. at 5, to imitate and beat her older sister Agata, who is three years older, as she herself told in some interviews (Agata left tennis at 15 due to frequent injuries).
Already at the junior level Swiatek achieved excellent results and in 2018, at the age of 17, he won Wimbledon junior in singles and Roland Garros junior in doubles: the speed of his ascent was immediately clear when only two years later he won his first and so far the only Slam at Roland Garros 2020, one of the youngest tennis players ever, making herself known by professionals and enthusiasts all over the world.
Swiatek came to that tournament from almost unknown: in 2020 – essentially his first year as a professional – he had achieved a series of disappointing results and his only final at the WTA level (the major circuit in women’s tennis) had played and lost a a year and a half earlier, in the minor tournament in Lugano. Already after reaching the fourth round, that is, the round of 16, she was considered the biggest surprise of the tournament, because she was playing well and had not yet lost a set. In the round of 16 she surprisingly beat Sofia Kenin favorite 6-1, 6-2, world number 3 and seeded number 1 in the tournament. In the end Swiatek ended the entire tournament without losing a single set: it hadn’t happened since 2007, when she did the same Justine Henin, one of the strongest Belgian tennis players in history and four times Roland Garros champion. Swiatek won from number 54 in the world, the lowest ranking ever for a French tournament winner.
From that moment on she became very popular with the public and gained hundreds of thousands of fans around the world, not only for her exciting tennis, but also for her character and sympathy. After winning the women’s final of Roland Garros she said she was always one great fan by Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal, who would play the men’s final the next day. Asked if he planned to attend the match, Swiatek replied: “Let’s see if I can get the tickets!” While on the pitch he always has a very concentrated air that often does not reveal emotions, outside Swiatek is already associated with a certain spontaneity. Just after winning the final in Rome on Sunday, she burst into tears and was moved throughout the award ceremony, too when he joked on Italian cuisine.
Iga Swiatek just after the last point of the final at the Internazionali di Roma (AP Photo / Alessandra Tarantino)
In his professional career, Swiatek has had two coaches up to now, both Polish: Piotr Sierzputowski, from 2016 to December 2021, and Tomasz Wiktorowski, who from 2011 to 2018 had coached Agnieszka Radwanska, a former Polish tennis player considered one of the strongest in the history of country. Radwanska had also been the most successful of her, at least until Swiatek surpassed her victories in number and importance, in just two years of professional career.
Among the people who are part of the Swiatek team, however, the most quoted and interviewed is Daria Abramowicz, a sports psychologist who seems to have given her great awareness of her talent and ability to manage difficult moments. She is a figure who immediately intrigued the media, because Swiatek has always spoken very willingly and openly both about her and her mental health, overcoming a certain modesty still very present on the subject, which sport and tennis are facing only in recent years and partially.
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During Roland Garros in 2020, several matches before the victory, Swiatek said that Abramowicz had made her “smarter” and that he had helped to introduce her to sport and psychology better: “I understand my feelings and I can name them aloud. “. Then she added: “I think mental strength is probably the most important thing in tennis right now, because everyone can play at the highest level, but the best ones are the toughest ones and they can handle the pressure.”
Abramowicz, who is 33 and a former professional sailor, said she works extensively with Swiatek on maintaining deep relationships with her family and friends, so that she has some emotional stability, which she feels is also necessary to get to the sporting successes. Her goal is to make her understand that she can achieve better results if she approaches tennis as a part of her life, and not as if she were. all his life.
Last year Swiatek donated $ 50,000 to support World Mental Health Day. She said she was aware of the importance of being “at peace” in order to concentrate on one’s work: “It is not only valid for tennis players, but for any person who wants to be successful and who is doing extraordinary things”.
Mindset is probably the aspect that most distinguishes Swiatek from other talented young tennis players out there. Her victory at Roland Garros in 2020 came at a time when women’s tennis was struggling to deliver players capable of winning consistently and imposing dominance on the circuit: there had been several new Grand Slam winners, and none had since succeeded. to confirm itself at those levels.
The four Slams are Roland Garros, Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open. Before her, the Canadian Bianca Andreescu (US Open 2019), who is currently number 72 in the world, and the American Sofia Kenin (Australian Open 2020), currently number 149, had won one in an unexpected and impromptu way.
Iga Swiatek in Paris with the Roland Garros trophy, after the 2020 victory (AP Photo / Christophe Ena, File)
The fear of many was that Swiatek was also a “passing” winner, and that due to his young age he would not be able to maintain the level of tennis expressed in that tournament in the months to come, as happened to Andreescu and Kenin. After the victory Swiatek seemed very aware of this possibility, and she said, “I think the biggest challenge for me is to become continuous.” Then again: “This is why we have so many new Grand Slam winners, because we are not as constant as, for example, Rafa, Roger and Novak” (Nadal, Federer and Djokovic).
He said that from then on that would be his goal, and to look at his path today seems to have definitely succeeded: after that victory he went from number 54 to number 17 in the world rankings, and continued to improve until he permanently entered the top 10 afterwards. the victory obtained at the Internazionali in Rome last year. In 2021, which ended with two tournaments won, she was the only player on the circuit able to reach at least the round of 16 in all Grand Slam events, proving to be competitive on all surfaces.
Last year its rapid rise and continuity had partly gone unnoticed: partly because after Rome it had not had major peaks – which generally attract more attention from the media – and partly because its growth had been neglected. overshadowed by the results of the number 1 of the circuit, Ashleigh Barty, and a new young promise, Emma Raducanu, who last September had managed to win the US Open at just 18 years old. Swiatek was not new, like Raducanu, and he still didn’t come close to Barty’s level.
Still this year, his outstanding achievements are receiving less attention due to Barty’s sudden retirement from tennis, who at the age of 25 said he no longer had the right reasons to continue (Swiatek said he cried for 40 minutes after hearing the news).
Swiatek, who in the meantime had risen to the second position in the ranking, only overtook Barty after his retirement: so little was said about him. However, given the level of tennis achieved by Swiatek in recent tournaments, many of her now regret not having been able to witness a rivalry between her and Barty.
Since her win at Roland Garros, Swiatek had seemed a very complete tennis player, despite having room for improvement in many aspects of her game. She has a very solid forehand and backhand and is a great defensive and recovery player, capable of sustaining and winning very long rallies. These characteristics, combined with a great variety of shots and solutions, certainly make her a very suitable tennis player for clay courts, where she has so far obtained her most prestigious victories: she plays very well damped and lobs, but she is also capable of going to the net in effective way.
How To Save Multiple Break Points – Masterclass by @iga_swiatek pic.twitter.com/SW0RBRLpQn
— Out of Context 1ga Swiatek (@SwiatekOOC) May 15, 2022
However, she has already won important tournaments also on hardcourt, developing over the last year a more aggressive style of play (especially in the response to the service of the opponents) and suitable for that surface. She has played less on the grass so far, but in 2021 she still managed to reach the round of 16 at Wimbledon.
The most decisive aspect of his game, however, probably continues to be the ability to stay focused on the decisive points and to raise the level in the most important matches. It does not seem coincidental that Swiatek has won 8 of the 9 finals played in his career (he lost only the first, at 17), and that in the 8 victories he has always won by 2 sets to 0, effectively dominating every opponent he faced.
At this moment, no tennis player seems able to achieve either his continuity in the long run, nor his level in a single game, much less on clay: for this reason he is considered unanimously and by far the most credible pretender to the victory of the next. Roland Garros, which will start on May 22, as well as its weeks from number 1 on the world rankings look set to become many more than the current six.
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