Iga Swiatek failed to win the 2024 Paris Olympics, and almost immediately, opinions appeared about what was going on with the World No. 1.
Tennis is a sport with a short memory because it keeps going without any breaks. Whatever an athlete does today will be almost forgotten in a couple of weeks, and players are measured to that standard.
Even the best players in the world have to face that, and Swiatek has experienced that recently. The Pole had that experience when she failed in her goal of winning the gold medal at the Paris Olympics.
She arrived in France as the top favorite to do so thanks to her historic domination at Roland Garros in the previous years. She herself likely saw herself as the favorite, but she didn't leave the French capital with the gold medal around her neck.
In the semi-final, she ran into an inspired Qinwen Zheng and lost to the Chinese player. It's likely the toughest loss Swiatek has had to endure in her career. There were lots of emotions: tears, anger, and disbelief.
She couldn't believe it, and neither could her fans. Even though she could bounce back well and win the bronze medal, thoughts about what went wrong appeared almost immediately, with some blaming her lack of speed.
"It’s crazy to look back on this US Open in particular and see how much more athletic she was compared to now. Her defence has fallen off massively because she’s not got that same burst of speed she does here. Unsure why she’s lost it, maybe just strength>speed now or that injury?"
She lost because her opponent outplayed her. Zheng made fewer errors and generally looked more comfortable on the court. While some have suggested that Swiatek has fallen off physically, especially when it comes to her speed, her fitness coach, Maciej Ryszczuk, rubbished those claims.
"That's actually not true at all."
Only recently, Ryszczuk spoke to Tennis Majors, further discussing Swiatek and improvements that she could make when it comes to her physical side.
"Yes, there’s still a lot to improve with Iga, but there’s also the need to see that there is no need to crush it. More strength is maybe not necessary. I want her faster, with more power, but if we build more strength, it may not improve her tennis. I need to be careful."
There is a balance to be struck in tennis because everything impacts everything else. Swiatek is a dedicated worker and certainly one of the physically stronger players on the WTA Tour, which is proven by her injury record.
She has been exceptionally healthy, so she's certainly working on staying in shape. Suggestions otherwise make no sense because the evidence tells us differently. The team is mostly focused on consistency, which gets rewarded quite a bit in tennis.
"The main goal is to stay at this intensity with the same consistency. It’s maybe less about improving than about staying at the same level year after year."
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