Iga Swiatek suffered a pretty big loss to Coco Gauff at the 2023 Cincinnati Masters and she avenged it recently in Beijing.
Gauff bested Swiatek en route to her first WTA 1000 Premier title earlier this year at the Cincinnati Masters, and it was a disappointing loss for Swiatek. It was the end of her domination against Gauff that included many great wins, such as the Roland Garros final.
A bit over a month later, Swiatek took on Gauff at the China Open recently, and it looked very much like the matches we saw before. She completely dominated, and according to Pam Shriver, it's the competitive spirit that she has that allowed her to do that.
It reminded her of the 'revenge tour' of Serena Williams, where she smashed everyone after losing her number one rank. She thinks that Swiatek could unleash something similar, though it's going to be really tricky.
You can think about the great players through the years at the top, who lose a spot or two in the rankings... they tend to respond pretty well. You think about how Serena Williams responded to having losses, the 'Revenge tour' that she may have been on at certain points in her career. I think Iga took that, when she faced Coco.
I mean Coco obviously had the wrong side of that set after set after set, was able to come out on top in Cincinnati. And then Iga, you know she would've gone into that next match after the loss totally motivated to figure some things out.
Shriver further expanded on Swiatek and her focus after losing the number one rank. She admitted that she wants it back and so far, it's really looked like that. The big test is coming up at the WTA Finals in Cancun at the end of the month.
And what I see from Iga since she lost the World No. 1 ranking is certainly she described a little more freedom to try and figure out some new wrinkles in her game. Whether it's coming to the net more, or using her second serve with a little more authority. So it's kind of fun to see the best try and get even better.
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