Iga Swiatek is in Madrid as she looks to get her 2026 season going.
The six-time Grand Slam champion had a strong 2025, including her first Wimbledon title while working with coach Wim Fissette.
But she started this year slowly, which led to a change in her coaching setup. The Pole is now training under Francisco Roig.
Swiatek and Roig have already spent time together at the Rafa Nadal Academy and trained again in Stuttgart. She started well there, beating Laura Siegemund before falling to Mirra Andreeva in the quarter-finals.
For years, Iga Swiatek was the most dominant force on the WTA Tour, especially on clay courts.
The Pole picked up four French Open titles in just five years and put together a 37-match winning streak back in 2022.
However, over the past year or so, Swiatek’s hold over the women’s game has started to loosen. Explaining why she thinks her dominance has dipped, she told the Madrid Open:
“And I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of closed patterns. And the rallies sometimes on my practices were kind of short.”
“Where sometimes I needed really to feel solid. And you need to have this feeling in your hand that you’re not going to miss a ball, you know?”
The Polish star, who faces Daria Kasatkina or a qualifier in the Madrid Open second round, also discussed how working with a Spanish coach has helped her focus more on consistency and highlighted where her decision-making could improve.
“Because Spanish players are usually really solid and fight for every point. They’re prepared for long rallies too. That’s why Francis and I share similar goals.”
In the 2023 Madrid Open final, Iga Świątek lost to Aryna Sabalenka in three sets. The following year, she came back with a point to prove.
Swiatek started the 2024 tournament strongly, dropping just eight games across her first three matches. She then took down Beatriz Haddad Maia in three sets to reach the semi-finals and followed that up by defeating Madison Keys.
The final was a marathon contest, with Swiatek saving three championship points before finally edging past Sabalenka in a deciding tiebreaker.
After the match, Swiatek spoke about how she managed her mindset during those tense moments when Sabalenka was on the brink of victory.
“Before the tiebreaker, I was like ‘okay, she has a match point.’ I mean, sometimes it happens that I lose my serve, you know, when it’s 5-4 or something like that. So I was, like, okay, whatever. It’s not the first time in my life. I’m just going to go for it.”
“I think I decided to play a fast serve there,” Swiatek said. “So I wanted to be courageous in that moment.”
As for the match point she had missed earlier when Sabalenka fired an ace past her?
“But for sure when I had a match point and she served an ace,” Swiatek added with a laugh.
Aryna Sabalenka and Alexandra Eala link up with same practice partner before Madrid Open