Current world No. 7 Iga Swiatek has been a dominant force on clay in recent years, especially at Roland-Garros, where she won her first Grand Slam title in 2020 and then completed a remarkable three-peat with victories in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
However, the 2025 season has painted a different picture. Swiatek was unable to defend her titles at the Madrid Open, the Italian Open, and, most notably, the French Open. She is also yet to secure a single WTA 500 or WTA 1000 title this year and has dropped out of the top five in the WTA Rankings, which is compounding concerns.
Is this a sign of a larger shift in the balance of power on the WTA Tour, or could it simply be a temporary dip in form and confidence?
Let’s take a look at Swiatek’s journey, the major titles she has won, her rise to becoming world No. 1, her clay court domination that now looks under threat, and what the future holds.
Swiatek rose to fame in 2020 at the French Open, which was held in September that year due to the COVID pandemic. Ranked 54th at the time, she beat the 2019 runner-up, Markéta Vondroušová, and the then world No. 2, Simona Halep, en route to her first Grand Slam final, where she defeated world No. 6 Sofia Kenin in straight sets to take home the Suzanne Lenglen trophy, thus becoming the lowest-ranked winner in WTA Rankings history.
From there began Swiatek’s upward trajectory, as she wrote her name into the tennis history books by becoming the first Polish player to win a major singles title.
Swiatek went on to win her first WTA Masters title — another clay court tournament — at the Italian Open in Rome the following year. However, she failed to carry on her title defence, losing to Maria Sakkari in the quarter-finals of the 2021 French Open. She ended the year in the top ten of the WTA Rankings and made the cut for her first WTA Finals.
The 2022 season was her best yet, as she won six straight WTA tournaments starting from the Qatar Ladies Open until the French Open, where she beat Coco Gauff in the final and, in doing so, reached the world No. 1 ranking. She ended the season with another Grand Slam title — the US Open — by beating Ons Jabeur in the final, thus also ending the year as world No. 1.
Swiatek continued her domination on the WTA Tour for the next two years, adding two more French Open titles to her collection along with several WTA titles as well as the season-ending WTA Finals crown in 2023.
However, she started showing a loss of form and confidence after the heartbreaking loss in the semi-finals of the 2024 Paris Olympics to China’s Qinwen Zheng, that too on her favoured clay of the Roland-Garros stadium. Since then, Swiatek hasn’t won a single WTA tournament and is currently having an abysmal season by her very high standards.
One reason for her inconsistency could be the change in coaching. Swiatek brought in a new coach in Wim Fissette — who replaced Tomasz Wiktorowski — in October 2024, and new coaching tactics take time to show results.
Another reason for Swiatek’s poor run of form could be attributed to the one-month doping ban she was handed in November 2024 for the banned substance trimetazidine, which showed up due to contamination of a regulated non-prescription medication (melatonin) she had taken for sleep and jet lag issues.
The constant speculation, investigations, and numerous interviews can also take their toll, and it seems all these factors have been affecting Swiatek at once, which has led to inconsistent performances since the turn of the year.
That said, Swiatek has still performed well at Grand Slams. She reached the semi-finals of both the Australian Open and the French Open this year. However, she wasn’t the favourite to win at Roland-Garros this year despite a three-peat, with both Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff having been in better form on clay in the lead-up to the tournament.
With young talents like Mirra Andreeva rising rapidly, and top seeds such as Gauff and Sabalenka finding strong form and growing more confident on clay, winning titles on her favourite surface has become increasingly challenging for the out-of-form Swiatek.
I don’t believe a player can forget how to play overnight. Even with all her struggles, Swiatek is performing admirably at the elite level; it’s just that she has failed to maintain her composure in crucial moments. Case in point, at Roland-Garros recently, she came back from a set down to beat Elena Rybakina in the fourth round. Even in the semi-final against Sabalenka, she came back from 4–1 down in the first set to make it 4–4, before losing the set in a tie-break, winning the next set, but losing the decider in rather terrible fashion.
In my opinion, this is just a temporary rough patch for the former world No. 1. Still only 24 years old, and already a five-time Grand Slam champion, Iga Swiatek has proven time and again that she has what it takes to compete at the highest level. Setbacks like the current one are not uncommon in sports, and often it’s the challenges — not the victories — that teach one the most. True champions are defined by how they respond to adversity, and Swiatek has both the talent and the mentality to rise again.
She’s not done yet; she simply needs to rediscover that winning momentum. And with her skill, passion, and experience, a strong comeback is only a matter of time.
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