This is perhaps a topic for coach Evan, but we’re six straight tournament titles in. How do you beat Iga Swiatek?
35 straight match wins. We haven’t seen that on the WTA tour in some time. Djokovic was the last player to pull something like this off on the tours. Nadal had a nice streak going early in the year, but lost in Miami. But how do you beat Iga Swiatek? She seems unstoppable at the moment. And despite the pressure of pretty much everyone predicting her to win (myself included) doing it is a different story. Then you show that you’re really dominant and mentally strong.
Sadly, I have no strategic answers on how to beat Iga. It seems close to impossible at the moment. But we’re entering the grass court season now and that is not her favorite surface. Most likely we will see some kind of loss for her at this part of the season. But then again, when you have the kind of confidence that Swiatek is displaying on a tennis court, anything is possible. Her game is definitely more suited for topspin friendly clay courts than low-bouncing grass courts though.
Coco Gauff is here
We should also mention Iga’s final opponent, Coco Gauff. She is only 18 years old and seems to have added a few extra gears to her game. You could call her French Open final a possible breakthrough. How can she build on this? As a nice bonus she also (at the time of writing) has reached the French Open doubles final. Still, it’s hard to say if this is a good couple of weeks or something that she can bring with her into the rest of the season.
It would be interesting to see a new player step up and challenge Iga, but Gauff didn’t have enough in the final and it was relatively one-sided 6-1 6-3. This type of scoreline is kind of typical when Iga wins so it wasn’t unexpected. But maybe Gauff can build on her game and maybe other young players like Raducanu or Fernandez can get going and challenge Iga’s domination?
What do you see in the crystal ball for the second part of the season on the WTA tour?
