What Is Wrong With Iga Swiatek?

What’s wrong with Iga Świątek? She lost to Coco Gauff in the semi-finals of the 2025 Madrid Open, 6–1, 6–1. What’s so strange about this result is that I remember vividly how much of a discrepancy in clay court level there was last year when Iga beat Coco in the semi-finals of the French Open and in the semifinals of Rome. I thought that Coco had very little chance to win those matches, and this is a different Iga. An Iga Swiatek we have never seen.

Last Year

I think the downward trend started shortly after collecting her fourth French Open title. She didn’t play well at Wimbledon, lost to Putintseva, but I don’t think that was upsetting for Iga. Grass courts are a surface she still has to master. But shortly after Wimbledon, Iga played the Olympics on her favorite surface—clay—at Roland Garros, and I was sure she was going to take the title. She had a devastating loss in the semifinals to Zheng, and I think that loss stuck in her mind for a long time and created a cascade of negative events.

Iga continued to lose matches, and if you look back at her results, the last time she was in a final was at the French Open in 2024. Her poor performances in some matches last year and this year have to do with a lack of confidence. That match against Zheng at Roland Garros possibly put some doubts in her mind, and she performed very poorly in some big matches after that.

New Tactics

But it goes deeper than that, because Iga also completely changed her tactics on court. She doesn’t play like the clay courter that she is. She has very heavy groundstrokes. She is one of the best athletes I’ve ever seen on the WTA Tour. She plays incredible defense, but also offense, and she plays high-percentage tennis. I have seen the exact opposite in some of her losses—for example, the Ostapenko loss in Stuttgart, but also the Coco Gauff loss in Madrid.

Iga is spraying balls and going for too much, committing too many errors. A lot of people are blaming the coaching, but I heard the coaching box tell Iga to build the points. A lot of this stuff is easier said than done.

The problems that Iga is having right now go very deep. It’s very likely that Iga doesn’t trust herself to stay in rallies, and therefore she pulls the trigger a little bit too fast. She’s playing very close to the baseline as well—something that’s quite unnecessary on clay. In other words, she’s taking way too many risks.

Last week, she just lost to Danielle Collins in the third round. Collins played a great match and her backhand wing was blasting winners. However, once again, Iga did not try to stay in the rally and she had too many unforced errors.

Brutal Media

Now on top of Iga losing a lot of matches, other things have been happening too. She has received some criticism on social media, and the media in Poland is very brutal on her—that’s what I’ve been told. Iga has had a hard time with that. She wrote a four-page note on Instagram. And my condolences go out to Iga because her grandfather passed away prior to the Madrid tournament. Times have been very tough for Iga.

See, I love the clay court season and I love clay court specialists. What I love most about clay court specialists is the fact that they are grinders. And what do all great clay court grinders have in common? They’re unbelievable movers. And it is my belief that Iga is one of the best movers we’ve ever seen on the WTA. But if you watch the match against Coco Gauff, Iga’s movement was very poor.

Post-Match Interview

In a post match interview, Iga Swiatek was asked why her footwork hasn’t been as good as always.

Swiatek said “ You’re forcing everything instead of it going by kind of intuition and by itself, you know? Because I know how I can move, and usually I didn’t have to think about it much. But for the last weeks it hasn’t been that easy. I’ve been forcing myself to go lower, to be more precise with my feet, because it’s not going by itself. Hopefully one day it’s going to click, but I’m not expecting anything. I’m just going to try to work on that.

The worst thing you can do is think of your feet when you’re playing tennis. It makes your movements very mechanical, they’re not continuous, and it leads to poor play. That’s exactly what was happening to Iga in the match against Coco Gauff.

Bad Footwork

I’ve seen this type of footwork mistake not only on her forehand but also on her backhand. Based on the post-match interview, Iga knows this is a big problem, and she has to let that footwork come intuitively to her like she has done in the past.

If you’re thinking too much about your footwork on the tennis court, trying to learn steps and thinking, “Which foot goes first? Which foot goes second? How do I make a crossover step?”—you have to learn to move intuitively.

There are things you can do to move intuitively. Let’s say you get a ball that’s not penetrating much—you don’t have to think about your feet. You just have to recognize the ball, and your feet will move on their own. You’re going to think, “Move up to that ball in relation to the ball,” and not worry about your feet. You already know how to run, you already know how to move. You’re going to watch that ball like a hawk, track it, and set yourself up perfectly.

If you’re thinking open stance or closed stance—that’s a recipe for disaster. In that particular scenario, if the ball has a lot of penetration, you can wait for it. Naturally, when you wait, you’ll be semi-open on the forehand. If it doesn’t have a lot of penetration, you’ll tell yourself, “Okay, I’m going to have to step up to that ball.” And naturally, that’s going to be a closed-stance situation.

Final Thoughts

What’s so interesting about this matchup between Gauff and Świątek is that both players get criticized on social media, and I get very annoyed because they don’t deserve any criticism. I understand that a tennis career has ups and downs. If you ask me right now, I’m sure Iga is the favorite for the French Open, but I don’t think she will win. Keep in mind these next few weeks the likes of Sabalenka, Gauff, and Andreeva.