Iga Swiatek made several troubling and revealing comments following her comprehensive defeat to Marta Kostyuk in the French Open fourth round.
Four-time Roland Garros champion Swiatek was knocked out of the competition on her 25th birthday in an inconsistent outing on Court Philippe Chatrier on Sunday.
The Pole hit just 13 winners to her opponent’s 25 and chalked up 39 unforced errors in the 7-5 6-1 loss – 12 more than the in-form Ukrainian.
Moreover, Swiatek won just 17 out of her 38 first serve points, and she failed to hold serve from 4-3 onwards. This is now her earliest defeat at the French Open since 2019.
The six-time major winner, who failed to serve out the first set, began working with former Rafael Nadal coach Francisco Roig in early April but going by this result and her remarks, there is a lot of work to do.
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Swiatek admitted that she felt worse as the encounter progressed, she got more and more tense, and this could take a year to resolve.
She said after the contest, “I lost control of the match, and there was no way for me to come back because I felt worse and worse, so this is not positive. And this is different than losing to Elina [Svitolina] in Rome or to [Mirra] Andreeva, I guess, in Stuttgart. So, yeah, it’s not great.
“I know that I lost because I was tense and my body couldn’t really do the proper things. But it’s not the first time. So, yeah, I just need to work on it.
“Honestly, for me, maybe the toughest loss is when you had the match in your hands, but I don’t know, you made stupid decisions and you let it go and your opponent suddenly comes back.
“Or it’s also bad when your tennis is just terrible and that you’re worse than the players that you play with. But I feel like for sure I lost today because Marta used the opportunity and I was super tense. And I feel like I can work on that at least.
“And there’s a reason and there’s maybe a solution. And maybe it’s not going to take one week or one month. Maybe it’s going to take even a season or something. But I need to believe that I can work through this and not be thrown off so quickly.”
In addition to her serving issues, she was particularly uncertain on her forehand against Kostyuk, who is yet to taste defeat on the clay this season after wins in Madrid and Rouen.
While the Ukrainian 15th seed will look forward to a quarter-final against compatriot Elina Svitolina, Swiatek may need to do a lot of soul searching.
“Well, I mean, we’re not on a therapy session, so I’m going to keep it simple. But obviously there could be many reasons, but I’d rather work on it on my own,” she added.
“It is harder a bit to handle stress for me like last year, especially I feel like the peak was in the United States this year. So I feel like today I felt off and I did mistakes that I didn’t want to do.
“And I wanted to play safe, but the ball flew everywhere. And suddenly these feelings came back and I tried to work on it with my dialogue inside. But it was tough today. Yeah, so it all kind of went drastically down and I played worse and worse.”
Swiatek, who is 11th in the WTA Race but is currently third in the rankings, will hope those negative feelings can dissipate when she aims to defend her Wimbledon title next month.
READ MORE: Roland Garros: Marta Kostyuk sends message after stunning Iga Swiatek upset
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