Iga Swiatek, Queen of clay, in danger of losing crown

“It’s very simple,” Iga Swiatek’s coach, Wim Fissette, told her from the sidelines on Saturday. “Play to win. Put your energy into the ball.”

It does sound simple, doesn’t it? Yet Swiatek, the No. 2 player in the world, couldn’t do it against 35th-ranked Danielle Collins in Rome. This is a tournament that Swiatek has won three times, an opponent she had beaten in seven of eight meetings, and a surface, clay, where she has reigned for half a decade. Her straight-set loss sent her to her earliest exit in Rome since 2020, and—unless she decides to play next week—completed a stunningly subpar lead-up to her title defense at Roland Garros.

Each week since the start of February, we’ve waited for Iga, the old Iga, the steamrolling Iga, the Iga who has owned the spring since 2022, when she won 37 straight matches during this part of the season, to step forward and show herself again. We waited in Doha, where she was the three-time defending champion. We waited in Indian Wells, where she had won twice in the past three years. We waited in Stuttgart, where she had also won twice. We waited in Madrid, where she was the defending champ. And we waited this week in Rome.

In each place, Swiatek failed to make the final, or to shrug off her erratic play and kick her game into the high gear we know she has. She had good wins at most of those events, and moments when it looked as if she had shaken off her self-doubt and reined in her often-wild forehand. But those moments didn’t last. Instead of getting better, Swiatek finished with two of her most one-sided and concerning defeats, against two American opponents she has traditionally dominated: 6-1, 6-1 to Coco Gauff in Madrid, and 6-1, 7-5 to Collins today.

Why? As Swiatek said earlier this week, everyone has a hypothesis.

“There are so many theories right now, I would say especially in Polish media, about me that are not true,” she said when a reporter brought up a rumor that she was planning to skip Wimbledon.

Swiatek has had a few theories of her own.

This year I feel like I’m struggling a bit more with my perfectionism. I want to for sure focus on, like, being disciplined on the court and making right choices, not the choices that sometimes pop out in my head, but being really solid…This is my main focus now. Iga Swiatek

After losing in Dubai, she pointed to a lack to training time after her semifinal run at the Australian Open.

“I would blame this performance on the lack of practice,” she said.

After losing in Madrid, she pointed to her sluggish movement.

“I feel like I wasn’t even in the right place with my feet, you know, before the shots…I’ve been like forcing myself to go lower, to be more precise with my feet, because it’s not going by itself.”

By Rome, she had shifted to the mental side of her game.

“This year I feel like I’m struggling a bit more with my perfectionism,” Swiatek said earlier this week. “I want to for sure focus on, like, being disciplined on the court and making right choices, not the choices that sometimes pop out in my head, but being really solid…This is my main focus now.”

So what was the issue against Collins? In the early going, there was a simpler explanation for Swiatek’s struggles: She couldn’t get her first serve in. She made just 36 percent of them, and was broken four times in that set alone. When she was forced to hit second serves, the advantage swung in the direction of the American, who rifled her returns for clean winners.

In the second set, Swiatek’s serve picked up, and so did her game. She cracked service winners, she built rallies around her backhand, she showed more positive energy. But again, just when it looked like she would grab the initiative and run away with the set, she…didn’t.

Credit Collins for stopping her with big serves on a few occasions. As commentator Alexandra Dulgheru said, she was a “calm beast” today. But Swiatek still had an opening late in the second set. Serving at 3-4, she held with her best, most disciplined rally of the day. In the next game, she did it again to reach break point. Finally, it seemed, she was focusing when she needed to. But at break point, she rushed a down-the-line forehand and put it into the net. Collins held, and eventually broke again for the win.

Was that down-the-line forehand an example of the “choices that pop out in my head” that she mentioned had plagued her this spring? It looked like it. Was her near-constant annoyance at her errors an example of her perfectionism getting the better of her? That seemed likely as well. Fissette’s words about “playing to win” and “putting your energy into the ball” were his way of trying to get her to stop wasting her energy by complaining about her imperfect shots.

Swiatek will drop out of the Top 3 for the first time 2022. More incredibly, she hasn’t won a title since Roland Garros a year ago—Paris is her last refuge.

The Queen of Clay still can’t be counted out there. In 2022, her idol, Rafael Nadal, didn’t win any clay events—except Roland Garros. We’ll keep waiting for the real Iga to arrive, but she only has one chance left. “Playing to win,” even for her, isn’t as simple as it sounds.