Daria Abramowicz has faced criticism over her relationship with Iga Swiatek this season, but how has the psychologist responded to the noise surrounding her role on the Polish star’s team?
Swiatek started working with Abramowicz, a renowned sports psychologist, in February 2019, when she was 17 years old and ranked just inside the top 150 on the WTA Tour.
Abramowicz has been praised for helping Swiatek become the leading player of her generation, with the 24-year-old securing 24 titles, including six Grand Slams, and spending 125 weeks as the world No 1.
During the 2020 French Open, where Swiatek won her maiden major title, the Pole credited Abramowicz for making her “smarter” and increasing her confidence level.
The pair’s partnership came under scrutiny earlier this year, though, as Swiatek was criticised for some of her on-court behaviour during a difficult run of form.
The world No 2 appeared to hit a ball towards her team – close to a ball boy – during her Indian Wells semi-final loss to Mirra Andreeva in March. Abramowicz, 37, was seen shouting from the stands during the match.
Following this incident, Polish sports psychologist Dariusz Nowicki claimed “certain boundaries” between Abramowicz and Swiatek had been crossed and labelled the partnership “disturbed.”
“If we were to look at this relationship only and exclusively from the point of view of strictly psychological workshop, then it is indeed a disturbed relationship, in which certain boundaries of professional distance between the psychologist and the client are crossed,” Nowicki told Interia Sport.
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“Unfortunately, most errors in perception occur when emotions are aroused. Regardless of whether these are positive or negative emotions, then we make errors in the accuracy of observation.”
Ahead of the French Open, Swiatek defended Abramowicz amid strong criticism from the Polish media.
“Daria is a constant source of support for me, someone I trust,” she said. “In fact, I trust my entire team, and I want people around to know that.
“This is my team – I decide who’s in it. The recent media pressure doesn’t create space for calm and focused work. On the contrary it creates additional, unnecessary stress.”
Abramowicz addressed the questions over her role in an interview with Marek Furjan, who hosts the Polish tennis podcast Break Point.
Furjan asked Abramowicz if she had considered sitting separately from Swiatek’s coaches during matches.
Furjan: “Didn’t you ever want to move a little away from [Wim] Fissette or [Tomasz] Wiktorowski, to the third or fourth row? Because in my opinion, that could resolve these tensions.”
Abramowicz: “But I do what is expected of me, what the athlete I work with asks me to do. And let’s move from that.
“If a player wants to have her own team, and if she wants us to, for example, not smile in the box, or cheer after every point, but rather look focused and be very meticulous, for example, or if she said before the match, ‘I need a lot of energy from you today, so I need a lot of “jazda” (a Polish word meaning let’s go), and so on, then we’ll do it.
“And of course, I talked to Iga about it. Of course I do: ‘Do you want us to make any changes? Or maybe I shouldn’t, for example, do you want me to skip a trip?’ And I repeat again: I do what the athlete expects of me.”
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