Iga Świątek loses absurd 73-match tennis streak in shock Miami Open defeat
Iga Swiątek mentioned she is in “the worst nightmare a tennis player can have” after one of the vital absurd win-streaks in tennis ended with a shock defeat to compatriot Magda Linette on the Miami Open.
Linette, the world No. 50 snapped Świątek’s run of 73 consecutive opening-match wins, which dated again to 2021, in a 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 consequence that left the six-time Grand Slam champion telling reporters that tennis “feels complicated in my head.”
“I’ve always been an over-thinker, but lately it’s just been so intense. It’s hard for me to get rid of many thoughts I have and this used to be my strength,” Świątek mentioned.
It was March 2019, earlier than Świątek had reached the world’s prime 100, when she final misplaced a match having gained the primary set 6-0 or 6-1.
The defeat represents a low level in an up-and-down season for Świątek. Since hiring skilled Belgian coach Wim Fissette towards the top of the 2024 season, she has had blended outcomes as she works by way of discovering the precise steadiness between baseline persistence and going for an excessive amount of when below stress. The spotlight was final summer season’s Wimbledon title, however total Świątek has struggled to search out the shape that made her such a dominant world No. 1 for the previous couple of years. Her rating is now No. 3.
Świątek has regularly vented her frustration at her workforce, which incorporates long-term psychologist Daria Abramowicz. This dynamic was significantly obvious towards the top of final week’s quarterfinal defeat to Elina Svitolina on the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif, which adopted considered one of her greatest performances of the 12 months: a suffocatingly restrained 6-2, 6-0 win over Karolína Muchová.
This loss to Linette didn’t comply with a current pattern of Świątek imploding when issues have gone towards her, which has been worsened by the unreliability of her first serve. Against Linette, Świątek solely dropped her serve twice, however made frequent return errors that prevented her from placing any stress on her opponent, who gained simply two video games in their final assembly.
Although the scoreline and the tennis didn’t present it, Świątek mentioned she skilled the loss as a type of collapse. Streaks, and the artwork of front-running, have been defining in her ascent to and keep on the prime of the game. She compiled the longest WTA win-streak of the twenty first century in profitable 37 matches in a row throughout 2022. Before a defeat to Maria Sakkari at this 12 months’s Qatar Open, she had gained 109 WTA 1000 matches in a row after profitable the primary set. Between 2022 and 2024, she compiled streaks of 44 and 56 matches in which she didn’t lose after profitable the primary set at any stage.
“Unconsciously or consciously it’s hard for me to change things, and then my tennis kind of collapses. So I need to work now to get back from that, because for sure I haven’t felt things like that for like five years,” Świątek mentioned.
“I’ve always had something that kept me figuring things out instead of dropping so much during matches. So I’ll just get back to work, try to get something positive out of the practices and some confidence back, and try to figure it out.”
Asked to explain her feelings, Świątek mentioned: “I feel like I carry a lot of expectations, and I can’t really, like, fulfill them right now. I need to get rid of them, because my game hasn’t been good enough to have any expectations. I think I’m a bit confused, but there’s no way but forward, and I’m going to try to just work hard to get back from that. And I know I have it in me; I just lost it for a second: the game and the mentality that I should have on the court.”
Świątek, who during an interview in 2025 said that changes to her game are only “visible on a bigger horizon,” reiterated that sentiment in a segment of her post-match mixed zone reported by Bounces.
“You cannot do, like, one enormous step and out of the blue it isn’t going to — there is no magic options. So I suppose you might want to do it with small modifications, however type of constantly, and hold your self-discipline.
“And you know, there’s other stuff — I’ll honestly need time to like figure out and to answer some questions, and I’ll see.”
Świątek might profit from an unexpectedly lengthy break earlier than the clay-court season, which is scheduled to start for her on the Stuttgart Open in Germany in mid-April. At the Australian Open in January she spoke about the necessity to skip sure occasions to keep away from bodily and psychological burnout, earlier than withdrawing from final month’s Dubai Tennis Championships. World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka withdrew from the identical occasion, earlier than her event director criticized each gamers for not attending.
Clay has tended to be Świątek’s strongest floor, with the French Open accounting for 4 of her six Grand Slams, though it has masked simply how good — if much less outstanding — her hard-court report is.
She nonetheless misplaced that sense of invincibility on the dust final 12 months, failing to win a title on the floor, and exiting the French Open on the semifinal stage in her first defeat on the event for 4 years.
Świątek will hope it may be a sanctuary this 12 months, as she appears to be like for options.
