Iga Swiatek never believed she would win a grand slam or achieve the No 1 ranking. There was no reference point. People from Poland, a country with a modest tennis tradition, didn’t do things like that. Even when she came from nowhere to win Roland Garros at the age of 19, Swiatek struggled to let go of self-doubt. It was a fluke, she reasoned, a mistake: she just happened to hit a purple patch in the right place, at the right time.
So Swiatek set out to prove herself all over again. And when she fell short of her own stratospheric standards, first at the Tokyo Olympics and then at the WTA Finals in Guadalajara a few months later, she wept inconsolably. At which point, a sense of shame set in.
“I was worried how people would see me,” Swiatek wrote in a moving and eloquent essay for the Players’ Tribune published on the eve of the Australian Open. “I was ashamed that I did that and thought it was not the way a champion should be.”
Yet it is in such moments that champions are often forged. Those low points encouraged Swiatek to target greater consistency, not only between the lines but between the ears. She wanted to be more settled, more trusting of herself. Swiatek would go on to compile a historic 2022, embarking on the longest winning streak in 32 years, claiming the French and US Open titles, and in the process establishing a vice-like grip on the top ranking. Above all, perhaps, the 21-year-old learned not to dwell on external perceptions.
“If there is some secret to my success in the last year, it’s giving myself that freedom to not care what people think,” said Swiatek. “That’s what led me to winning another grand slam and the third one. That’s what led me to No. 1. Letting go.
“When I have moments now where I feel a little bit insecure, that’s what I remind myself of.”
As she opens her challenge for a first Australian Open title against Germany’s Jule Niemeier on Monday, letting go may just prove the most potent weapon in Swiatek’s formidable arsenal. The Pole, whose run to the last four at Melbourne Park last year offered early evidence of the newfound aggression that would propel her to hard-court success in Qatar, Indian Wells, Miami and New York, has not enjoyed the smoothest build-up to the season’s first slam. There were tears following an unexpected defeat to Jessica Pegula at the United Cup in Sydney, followed by concerns over a shoulder injury that prompted her withdrawal from this week’s WTA 250 event in Adelaide.
Under the circumstances, Swiatek might have wished for a simpler first-round assignment. The 68th-ranked Niemeier was beaten in qualifying by Karolina Pliskova in Adelaide this week, but she was a quarter-finalist at Wimbledon last summer and led Swiatek by a set and a break when the pair met at Flushing Meadows in September. As that contest demonstrated, there will be no place for inhibition.
“You saw how intense that match was, how tough,” mused Swiatek. “It’s not going to be easy. But on other hand, any match in a grand slam is always more intense and more stressful than other tournaments. I’ll be ready for it. It’s nice also that we played not so long ago, so I can take a lot from that match. Now I know how her ball feels on the racquet. But she has the same, so we’ll see.”
Should Swiatek advance, she could face the winner of an enticing first-round meeting between former US Open champion Bianca Andreescu and Marie Bouzkova, the Czech 25th seed, before a last-16 reunion with Danielle Collins, the combative American who rolled over her in last year’s semi-finals.
Swiatek is not oblivious to the danger, especially in a quarter that also features Elena Rybakina, the Wimbledon champion, and Qinwen Zheng, the rising Chinese star who briefly discomfited her at Roland Garros last summer. Lurking too are Jelena Ostapenko and Coco Gauff, the champion in Auckland last week, whom Swiatek is expected to face in the last eight. Yet the Pole, who was beaten by Beatriz Haddad Maia and Madison Keys in the prelude to last year’s US Open, has grown accustomed to competing with a target on her back.
“After I won Roland Garros again last year, I hoped I would be able to play without pressure,” said Swiatek. “But in Toronto and Cincinnati, I realised how hard it is to be world No 1 when every player wants to beat you. They’re playing their best tennis against you.”
If everyone ends up where they are expected to, Swiatek will face an intriguing rematch with Pegula in the semi-finals. A few months ago, Pegula might have approached such a showdown with trepidation. The 28-year-old American was beaten on all four occasions the pair met last year, a run that included grand slam quarter-final defeats in Paris and New York. When she was asked, after her victory at the Guadalajara Open last October, if she would be part of the conversation at the majors in 2023, she quipped: “Hopefully, as long as I don’t play Iga in the quarter-finals.” Yet recent events may have shifted her mindset. There is nothing quite like a 6-2, 6-2 victory for restoring confidence.
It is too early to know whether Pegula’s dominant win over Swiatek at the United Cup will alter the trajectory of their rivalry. What we do know is that the New Yorker thrives on incremental improvements, rapidly consolidating her progress and moving on to the next challenge once a goal has been achieved. Witness her steady rise up the rankings since cracking the top 100 in February 2019, or the way that a first major quarter-final at Melbourne Park in 2021 was followed by three more last year. Having proved to herself that she has the level to match Swiatek, Pegula will know that a repeat is well within her capabilities.
First, though, she must get to the semi-finals – something she yet to achieve at a slam. If the seedings pan out, that would involve a fourth-round revenge mission against Petra Kvitova – who defeated her in straight sets at the United Cup and went on to claim an impressive win over Rybakina in Adelaide – followed by a meeting with Maria Sakkari, the Greek sixth seed. Intriguingly, Sakkari has won four of their six previous contests – although not the most recent, which came last year at Melbourne Park.
Another woman who can lay claim to the distinction of a relatively recent victory over Swiatek is Caroline Garcia, the fourth seed. A brilliant win over the Pole on the clay courts of Warsaw, in what was arguably the match of the season, came midway through a stellar summer that brought three titles on three different surfaces. Those wins, in Bad Homburg, Poland and Cincinnatti, were followed by a first major semi-final at the US Open and, in November, victory at the season-ending WTA Finals, the biggest triumph of her career. Handed a relatively kind draw that could potentially see her pitted against Russia’s Daria Kasatkina in the quarter-finals, Garcia will take some stopping if she can sustain the momentum of the past six months.
“It’s obviously a new season, and I can keep all the positive of what happen last year, all the improvement I made – the mentality, the mindset – and then start to work from that to [see] where can I go, what can I reach,” said Garcia, who opens against Katherine Sebov, the Canadian world No 191 and qualifying conqueror of Adelaide finalist Linda Novoska, in round one.
If Garcia is to eclipse her run at Flushing Meadows she may have to find a way past Ons Jabeur, who comfortably outplayed her in New York. The gifted Tunisian, seeded second, is bidding to land her first grand slam title after reaching finals at Wimbledon, where she lost out to Rybakina, and the US Open, where she was unable to halt the Swiatek juggernaut.
“I will try to use that experience from last year, because it was kind of tough,” said Jabeur. “My goal is to not lose any more finals, but just use that to be ready for the next one.
“I feel like there is not a lot of pressure on me on this tournament. I’m just going to try to play my game, just be there match by match, see what’s going to happen.”
One thing that could happen is Aryna Sabalenka, whom Jabeur is seeded to face in the last eight. The mighty Belarusian finished last season on a high note, reaching the US Open semi-finals for the second year in a row before taking down Swiatek in three sets to make the title round at the WTA Finals.
Sabalenka, seeded fifth, cut a swathe through the draw in Adelaide last week to land her first title since the 2021 Madrid Open, and the 24-year-old will feel she is overdue a breakthrough after losing appearances in her three previous grand slam semi-finals. She has also shown formidable mental strength to battle through the serving problems that led to 428 double faults last year. Could she be on the verge of something big?
“You never know,” said Sabalenka. “I just feel that I’m ready to show my best and I’m ready for a big fight. That’s everything I feel right now.”
It is likely to be the minimum requirement for anyone with ambitions of stopping Swiatek.