Swiatek’s Controversial Psychologist Addresses Public Pressure to Take a Step Back

Thursday, 31 July 2025 at 14:03

byErik Virostko

Iga Swiatek's psychologist, Daria Abramowicz, responded to some of the fans asking her to distance herself from the Polish player a bit more.

Every tennis player and every athlete has their team. Based on their preferences and possibilities, some have smaller teams that include a coach and maybe a physio, while some prefer to travel with larger teams.

A team of a tennis player can include up to two coaches, a fitness coach, a physiotherapist, a psychologist, and even some other members, helping the athlete to be successful.

Swiatek is one of the players with a relatively large team, which includes a psychologist, Daria Abramowicz. Abramowicz was an athlete herself, but turned to psychology later in her career, studying at the Gdansk University of Physical Education and Sport and at the SWPS University in Warsaw.

Abramowicz has been working with Swiatek since 2019, and the fact that she is still part of her team only proves that the six-time Grand Slam champion enjoys working with the 37-year-old psychologist. That is even despite some of the calls from the public for their separation.

A different sports psychologist, Dariusz Nowicki, said earlier this year that the relationship between the two is disturbed. According to Nowicki, it crossed the boundaries of what a relationship between a player and a psychologist should look like.

The pressure on Abramowicz is high, especially in Poland, where she recently talked to Marek Furjan in an interview. Furjan asked the psychologist whether she even considered not being in Swiatek's box, instead sitting a few rows behind, to avoid facing the pressure from the public.

"Didn't you think there would be less of you, I mean, didn't you ever want to move a little away from Fissette or Wiktorowski, to the third or fourth row? Because in my opinion, that could resolve these tensions."

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Abramowicz promptly responded to the question from Furjan, explaining that she would have done that if Swiatek asked her for it. According to the psychologist, she only does what the player asks her for.

"But I do what is expected of me, what the athlete I work with asks me to do. And let's move from that. If a player wants to have her own team, and if she wants us to, for example, not smile in the box, or cheer after every point, but rather look focused and be very meticulous, for example, or if she said before the match, 'I need a lot of energy from you today, so I need a lot of "jazda," and so on," then we'll do it."

Abramowicz also explained that she discussed the issue with Swiatek, asking if she would prefer her to skip some tournaments. However, that's not what the former WTA World No. 1 player wanted.

"And of course, I talked to Iga about it. Of course I do. 'Do you want us to make any changes? Or maybe I shouldn't, for example, do you want me to skip a trip?' And I repeat again: I do what the athlete expects of me."

For now, Abramowicz remains in Swiatek's box, and as her win at the Wimbledon Championships showed, there are probably no reasons to worry about the Pole's career.