Iron fist in a velvet glove — the Swiatek way

The 20-year-old’s radiant demeanour sheathes a brutal, frighteningly good all-court game. Already World No. 1, she has shown signs this year that she can dominate women’s tennis

In September 2020, Iga Swiatek was losing to an unheralded qualifier from The Netherlands, Arantxa Rus — a player ranked in the 70s, then and now — in the first round of the Italian Open. At a time when world tennis was slowly finding its feet amidst the ravages of a global pandemic, with the powers that be expectantly looking at a battery of top stars to lead the recovery, a Pole ranked just outside the top 50 — albeit a junior Wimbledon champion — was not on the radar.

Nineteen months since, 20-year-old Swiatek is radiantly famous, a terrier of a player blessed with boundless energy and upbeat tenacity. Barely weeks after that defeat in Rome, she claimed her maiden Major at the French Open to become the lowest-ranked women’s singles champion at Roland-Garros. She is now on an unbroken 23-match winning run, victorious at the last four tournaments she has entered (Stuttgart, the most recent) and the undisputed World No.1.

If Ash Barty’s abrupt retirement six weeks ago, while at the pinnacle, was akin to a ‘knocking the air out of your lungs’ moment for women’s tennis, Swiatek’s rise and her authoritative presence at the top in an astonishingly short period have come like oxygen.

Even as men’s tennis continues to go through cycles of servitude and deference to a trio of 30-somethings — not in a bad way — the women’s game has become this thriving example of the young and fledgling supplanting the old, and taking the sport towards an exciting future.

The manner of her ascendency to the top of the world may not have been to Swiatek’s liking. Barty’s retirement and subsequent desire to remove herself from the rankings resulted in Swiatek rising to No. 1 by default, days after becoming the World No. 2 with the Indian Wells triumph.

But nothing in her tennis suggested she didn’t belong. She backed up the Indian Wells success with the title in Miami to complete the ‘Sunshine Double’, a feat so rare that only three other women have ever achieved it (Steffi Graf, Kim Clijsters and Victoria Azarenka).

It was surprising to see someone so young not fall off the emotional cliff. Women’s tennis is often considered a rollercoaster, where the expectation is for a breakout star to soon morph into a hit-or-miss champion. Emma Raducanu, the teenaged US Open winner from 2021, is still trying to come to grips with her game that has gone to pieces in the aftermath of that historic high in New York.