Former WTA star Dominika Cibulkova has told Tennis365 Iga Swiatek can return to world No 1 as she expressed her admiration for the Polish great.<\/p>\n
Swiatek is the most successful player of her generation, having won 25 WTA Tour titles, including six Grand Slams: four Roland Garros titles, one US Open title and one Wimbledon title.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old has spent 125 weeks as the world No 1 across two separate stints \u2014 the first of which lasted 75 weeks from April 2022 to September 2023.<\/p>\n
It has, though, largely been a difficult last 18 months for Swiatek<\/a> by the lofty standards she has set, with her Wimbledon triumph last year the major high point during this period.<\/p>\n Swiatek is currently eighth in the WTA Rankings after her Wimbledon title defence ended with a third round loss to Alex Eala<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n Cibulkova, a former world No 4, assessed that Swiatek has been \u201closing against herself\u201d in an exclusive interview with Tennis365,<\/p>\n \u201cI am cheering for Iga Swiatek. I think the matches when she\u2019s losing, she\u2019s losing against herself,\u201d said the Slovak.<\/p>\n Exclusive: Agnieszka Radwanska tells Iga Swiatek \u2018the problem\u2019 she must solve to get back to her best<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n WTA Finals Race to Indian Wells: Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff in danger, outsider Alex Eala, Mirra Andreeva in pole<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cSo, I think when she\u2019s there mentally, and when she\u2019s ready, and when she\u2019s tough and strong, there are not many players that can beat her.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all about confidence. Of course, you have to train hard and practise a lot, but yes, the confidence\u2026 if you are not in the right mood, you can lose the confidence by one match.\u201d<\/p>\n Swiatek finished 2022 and 2023 as the world No 1, but her most recent week in top spot was in October 2024, with Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> occupying the position ever since.<\/p>\n Asked if Swiatek can get back to the top of the rankings, Cibulkova replied: \u201cI think, for sure, she can get back to No 1. I\u2019m pretty sure that she can get back there.\u201d<\/p>\n Before she retired in 2019, Cibulkova faced Sabalenka twice \u2014 at the 2018 Wuhan Open and the 2019 French Open \u2014 and she lost both matches to the Belarusian star.<\/p>\n Cibulkova praised the current world No 1\u2019s powerful game, but made it clear that Swiatek is her \u201cfavourite\u201d player.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, Sabalenka is strong,\u201d said Cibulkova.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I look from my perspective\u2026 I played against her when I was finishing my career, and she\u2019s a powerhouse.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s a great player, but my favourite is Swiatek.\u201d<\/p>\n During a stellar career, Cibulkova won eight WTA Tour<\/a> titles \u2014 the biggest of which came at the 2016 WTA Finals. She was also a runner-up to Li Na at the 2014 Australian Open.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Exclusive: Can Emma Raducanu contend for Grand Slams again? Legendary coach makes strong statement<\/a> The post \u2018Iga Swiatek is my favourite player \u2013 and she can get back to world No 1\u2019, says ex-WTA star<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former WTA star Dominika Cibulkova has told Tennis365 Iga Swiatek can return to world No 1 as she expressed her admiration for the Polish great. Swiatek is the most successful player of her generation, having won 25 WTA Tour titles, including six Grand Slams: four Roland Garros titles, one US Open title and one Wimbledon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA Tour News<\/h2>\n
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