5 things that foreshadowed Iga Swiatek’s domination of the women's tour

Iga Swiatek has completely dominated women’s tennis over the last three months, winning 28 matches in a row to sweep five straight WTA titles at Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart and Rome.

~ Her 28-match winning streak is the longest WTA winning streak since Serena Williams won 34 matches in a row between Miami and Wimbledon in 2013.
~ She’s the first woman to win five titles in a row since—again—Serena in 2013, when the American won five straight titles at Miami, Charleston, Madrid, Rome and Roland Garros.
~ She even won 28 sets in a row between the fourth round of Indian Wells and the semifinals of Stuttgart, which was the longest set streak on the women’s tour since, of course, Serena won 28 sets in a row between the 2012 US Open and 2013 Australian Open.

Swiatek’s WTA reign is something we haven’t seen in a while, and with so many different Grand Slam winners over the last five years, not a lot of people thought we would see something like this again, at least not anytime soon.

But if you look back, there was definitely some foreshadowing of Swiatek’s domination of the tour.

Here are five signs that Swiatek clearly had this in her:

She went 7-0 in finals on the ITF Circuit.
Between 2016 and 2018, Swiatek played seven finals on the ITF Circuit and won them all, including six of them in straight sets—the last five of those finals had some very lopsided scorelines: 6-2, 6-2; 6-3, 6-1; 6-2, 6-0; 6-2, 6-2; and 6-2, 6-2.

Swiatek lost the first WTA final she ever played in Lugano, Switzerland in 2019—to Polona Hercog, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3—but since then she’s won her last eight WTA finals in a row, all in straight sets, and with a few familiar scorelines: 6-4, 6-1; 6-2, 6-2; 6-0, 6-0; 6-2, 6-0; 6-4, 6-1; 6-4, 6-0; 6-2, 6-2; and 6-2, 6-2.

Even before going on her five-tournament winning streak this year, she had won her last three WTA finals in straight sets—she’s now won her last eight WTA finals in a row, and all in straight sets.

She reeled off 12 sets in a row to win junior Wimbledon.
Unseeded in the Wimbledon juniors in 2018, Swiatek drew No. 1 seed Whitney Osuigwe in the first round and dropped the first set, 6-2—but something clicked at that moment and she didn’t lose another set the rest of the tournament, coming back to beat the American in that match, 2-6, 6-3, 6-3, and winning all of her other matches in straight sets, including a 6-0, 6-1 victory over future US Open champion Emma Raducanu in the quarterfinals.

That would end up being the last major Swiatek played in the juniors.

She won 21 sets in a row at Grand Slams between 2020 and 2021.
A No. 54-ranked Swiatek shocked the tennis world by not only winning her first Grand Slam title at Roland Garros at the end of 2020, but by doing it in dominant fashion, winning all seven of her matches in straight sets without losing more than four games in any set: 6-1, 6-2; 6-1, 6-4; 6-3, 6-2; 6-1, 6-2; 6-3, 6-1; 6-2, 6-1; and 6-4, 6-1.

And one of the most dominant wins in that run—the 6-1, 6-2 victory in the middle of all that—came against a No. 2-ranked Simona Halep, who went into that match on a 17-match winning streak.

At the next major, the Australian Open in 2021, Swiatek picked up right where she left off in Paris, winning her first three matches in straight sets without losing more than four games in a set (6-1, 6-3; 6-2, 6-4; and 6-4, 6-3) and then winning the first set against Halep in the fourth round, 6-3.

Halep would eventually put an end to that major set streak with a 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory.

She won her third and fourth career matches against Top 10 players—and routinely.
It’s not so much that she got her first two Top 10 wins in her third and fourth tries, it’s the manner in which she got those wins.

Since very early on in her rise up the rankings, Swiatek has shown the capability to completely dominate the best players in the world on any given day—she went 5-7 in her first 12 career matches against Top 10 players but the five wins all came in straight sets, including two routine wins at Roland Garros in 2020 (beating Halep in the fourth round, 6-1, 6-2, and Sofia Kenin in the final, 6-4, 6-1) and the most routine win possible at Rome in 2021 (blanking Karolina Pliskova in the final, 6-0, 6-0).

Fast forward to today and Swiatek has gone 7-0 against Top 10 players during her current winning streak, all of those wins coming in straight sets without losing more than four games in a set: 6-2, 6-3; 6-4, 6-3; 6-2, 6-0; 6-4, 6-1; 6-2, 6-2; 6-2, 6-1; and 6-2, 6-2.

She was the only woman to reach the second week at all four majors last year.
Dominating the tour usually means you need to be a multi-surface threat, just like Swiatek has been during her current 28-match winning streak—she’s gone 19-0 on hard courts, and 9-0 so far on clay.

Last year, Swiatek was the only player on the entire women’s tour to reach the second week of all four Grand Slams, which cover all three surfaces: hard (Australian Open and US Open), clay (Roland Garros) and grass (Wimbledon).

Whether or not this streak takes her to another Roland Garros title, given her previous successes at Wimbledon—girls’ champion in 2018, second week of the women’s event last year—she could easily keep the wins coming on grass this year.