Iga Swiatek, US Open favorite? Her brilliant form can end unexpectedly—and return quickly

NEW YORK—“Every day is different.” The phrase has always been a favorite among tennis players, for good reason.

No two opponents, and no two matches, are exactly alike, and you have to adjust your game on a daily basis to succeed. Jimmy Connors, to cite one example, used the idea as a mantra of positivity. It was a way for him to keep his guard up after a win, and put his losses behind him as quickly as possible.

The concept has only become more popular with the current crop of top pros. That begins with the best men’s player, Jannik Sinner. He rarely makes it through an interview without using a variation of “every day is a new day,” “every day is a new challenge,” “every day is a different opponent.” For him, it’s a way to temper expectations and not get ahead of himself.

By now, it’s a cliché, a slight update on the classic, “I’m taking it one match at a time.” But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

If you need fresh evidence, look no farther than Iga Swiatek’s second-round match with Suzan Lamens on Thursday. Her 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 win showed that not only is every day a new day, every set is different from the last one as well.

When she took the court, Swiatek was widely seen as the favorite to win the US Open. Since Roland Garros, she has won Wimbledon and Cincinnati, both for the first time, and she was on 12-set win streak. Her recent work on her serve with coach Wim Fissette had arguably made her a better fast-court player than she had ever been before. While Aryna Sabalenka is still No. 1 and has still had the best overall season in 2025, Swiatek had already surpassed her in many people’s eyes.

Swiatek herself didn’t agree that she, or anyone else, was the player to beat.

“I already think it doesn’t make sense to call anyone the favorite,” she said as the tournament got underway. “There are many players that play really good and can win the tournament.”

Against Lamens, Swiatek would help prove her own point. She would also prove that a run good form doesn’t continue forever. It only takes a couple of misses for a player—even the very best of them—to lose confidence and feel instantly.

Everything went according to plan in the first set. This was Swiatek the Steamroller, the one who jumps on her opponent, gets an early break, and picks up speed from there. Despite the 6-1 score, though, there was one catch: Lamens was playing well. While she was getting pushed around on the baseline, she also showed an ability to absorb pace and redirect it. That started to pay off in the early in the second, when she broke Swiatek with a perfectly lofted topspin lob.

This was the first fight-back Swiatek had felt in New York, and it may not have been a coincidence that her serve went off soon after. Up 4-3, she double faulted twice and was broken. The issues quickly spread to her forehand. She closed the second set by spraying that shot long, wide and into the net. Even when she tried to take pace off and hit high and safe, the ball sailed on her.

“A virus that infected her entire game,” is how Andrea Petkovic described Swiatek’s serve in the commentary booth.

It only takes a couple of misses for a player—even the very best of them—to lose confidence and feel instantly.

Swiatek’s mistakes encouraged Lamens, who ran everything down, turned rallies into lung-busters, and made a rout into a competition.

“For sure it wasn’t the easiest match,” Swiatek said. “It got a bit complicated in the second set.”

“I kind of let her in after the first set, and she used her chances and she immediately kind of knew what to do.”

In the end, Swiatek, after two months of winning, had too much residual confidence built up to let this match get completely out of hand. Her serve improved in the third, and her forehand came along with it. She never got back into steamroller mode, but she stayed upright all the way to the finish line.

Swiatek finished with more errors than winners, 29 to 26. Her second set dip seems to indicate that her early-season inconsistency hasn’t been banished entirely, never to return.

At the same time, she seemed to think that this was a test that will give her confidence she can recover from a sudden loss of form.

“Just being under pressure a bit, figuring it out, problem-solving, it’s always something you can take from a match like that,” she said.

“I wanted to be confident with my serve, and go for it,” she said of her mindset in the third. “Third set is a reset, you got to start from the beginning. I knew I could play a little bit more precise.”

“I’m happy at the end I could be more proactive.”

Swiatek’s serve was a virus in the second set, but it was the antidote in the third. She’ll need it to be firing in her next round, against Anna Kalinskaya, a flat hitter who likes fast courts, and who has a 1-1 career record against her.

Every day is different, as Swiatek reminded us today. She may still be the favorite for the title, but she’ll have to earn it one match, and one set, at a time.