"Swiatek needs to break out, she has entered a vicious circle"

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The dominance of Iga Swiatek reached such levels, even beyond clay courts at times, that the Polish tennis player couldn't have imagined in her worst nightmare that she would go a whole year without winning a professional title. It's the hole she's fallen into that she hasn't played a final since her last Roland Garros, exactly twelve months ago when she began the worst streak of her career. At least in terms of victories, as she has reached the late stages in almost all her tournaments, but this falls short for a super champion like her. As reported by TNT Sports, another legend like Justine Henin is analyzing the situation of an athlete in decline.

"Up until now, there hadn't been any issue, but it's true that once the clay court season arrives, a tour she loves so much and getting closer to the tournament she has conquered four times, the normal expectation would have been to find that reconnection with herself. It was now, it was the moment, but she's still not at that level. Against Collins in Rome, we saw her going through a tough moment, in a very complex emotional state, arriving at press conferences with red eyes. From the outside, you can feel how painful it is," commented the 42-year-old former player.

For Henin, also a four-time Roland Garros champion, this crisis for Swiatek could have started precisely last June, with her last victory in Paris. "I remember her speech to the crowd after her win against Osaka, there we already felt that she wasn't particularly well, she was a bit on the edge, off-topic. I think it was very difficult for her to get that title; she had just overcome some complex issues for a while, maybe it all stems from her perfectionist side. She wants to do things her way, especially after the status and dominance she has had on clay. We often forget the pressure a player with such a young and successful career like Iga has to endure," stated the Belgian drawing from her experience.

"I think she was greatly burdened by seeing that her game was not evolving as fast as she desired. Her victory in the 2022 US Open, for instance, was not enough to free her from that thought. Something started creeping into her mind gradually, the distress of seeing the competition progress more in that regard. All of this ends up pressuring you until you fall into a vicious circle, which is why we see her now fighting so much against everything," analyzed Justine, retired since 2021 but still closely linked to the tennis world from various perspectives.

THE ROLAND GARROS EXAM

As the Belgian aptly notes, not even clay courts have been able to bring out the best in Swiatek, who entered this 2025 season after overcoming a doping positive, changing coaches on the sidelines, and seeing the world No. 1 slip away in the previous season's final tournament. This tour has seen her reach the quarterfinals in Stuttgart, semifinals in Madrid, and the third round in Rome, far from the numbers she had been posting in previous seasons. Will she be able to leave all these stumbles behind and recapture the Parisian clay?

"Perhaps this is the moment when she needs to break out, just so things turn out better," Henin anticipates, who is not completely convinced of the Pole's ability to make a breakthrough in three weeks' time. "What I see is that she needs to pause to analyze and understand what's happening to her, what can happen when you're so perfectionist. Amongst ourselves, we've already discussed what could happen at Roland Garros, who knows if we'll see her falter prematurely there to start anew," she concludes.

This news is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, “Swiatek necesita explotar, ha entrado en un círculo vicioso”