Tennis legend Chris Evert has given her verdict on the alarming slide in form suffered by defending French Open champion Iga Swiatek and admits the fear factor she used to take onto a clay court has gone for now.<\/p>\n
Four-time Roland Garros queen Swiatek<\/a> has endured a painful clay court season, with heavy defeats at the Madrid Open and the Italian Open confirming her slide in form is not just a temporary blip.<\/p>\n Now 18-time Grand Slam singles champion Evert has admitted the Swiatek collapse is nothing new, as she has been on the slide for some time.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s just the last two weeks. She hasn\u2019t won a tournament in a year. She hasn\u2019t one a tournament since last year\u2019s French Open. So this has been this has been going on for a while,\u201d Evert told TNT Sports.<\/p>\n \u201cSlowly that just builds and builds and builds the more you lose the more You lose confidence in your game. And then the more the other players feel that they\u2019ve got a real shot. And I think When I watched Coco beat her, Coco, I think has beaten her the last two times, and I think they were going forehand to forehand the whole time because both of their forehands are weaknesses and Coco\u2019s forehand held up better than Iga\u2019s.<\/p>\n The ranking points Swiatek, Sabalenka, Gauff, Raducanu & co will defend at the French Open<\/a><\/p>\n Iga Swiatek reveals mindset and tactical shifts she has made for French Open title defence<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cSo to me, the players know a strategy now how to play Iga and they know she\u2019s not invincible anymore because she\u2019s lost some matches. So, it\u2019s a combination of Iga losing confidence because she hasn\u2019t won a tournament in a year. How can you be a number one player? You know, because she was number one at some point. You can\u2019t be a number one player and not win a tournament for a year.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so it\u2019s that component losing confidence, but it\u2019s also the component of the other players are like, they think that they have a shot now against her on the clay. And before that, they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cSo it\u2019s those two things that are working in the life of Iga right now. And by the way, I hope she finds her level. I was a champion and I know how it feels when you lose that edge against the other players and she\u2019s a nice person, she\u2019s good person, she\u2019s nice person and I hope that level that made her the greatest clay court or maybe one of the greatest clay court players ever.\u201d<\/p>\n Swiatek posted a positive doping test last year, after a drug she was using to help her sleep was contaminated and she was forced to serve a one-month ban.<\/p>\n While it is widely accepted she was not at fault for that incident, Evert believes the stress of her doping case may have played a role in her dip in form.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t talk about the doping case,\u201d continued Evert. \u201cI think that really affected her personally because she\u2019s very aware of what people think about her. And I think, that\u2019s very important that she wants to be looked up to and respected and she wants to be a role model. \u201cI think that emotionally upset her, for sure. Because all of this happened around the same time after the French Open, that happened. And then the results weren\u2019t what she wanted them to be. She was number one in the world then. And then she lost her number one ranking.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s definitely a confidence player like most top players. She\u2019s a confidence player and I don\u2019t think she has that high level of confidence that she used to have. And I think that I can tell really by her forehand, she seems to be mishitting a few forehands and in these long rallies, these girls, these young ladies are just, you know, are just attacking that forehands side. Her forehand\u2019s breaking down, it\u2019s broken down more than we\u2019ve seen it.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd her serve needs to improve. The second serve is still a target for these returners like Sabalanka and Coco who have returned so well. And it\u2019s a target. And the fact that like she\u2019s lost to Ostapenko like six times in a row now. Records like that have to chip away at her confidence. How does she get that back?\u201d<\/p>\n When asked how Swiatek could rediscover her best form, Evert offered up some candid advice.<\/p>\n \u201cI think she just has to really get it back the first couple matches that she plays at the French Open,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s just got to go out there and not be tentative and just go for her shots, be aggressive, maybe make the court smaller, hit down the middle maybe a lot more, get her timing, continue to work on her serve. But again, I think in her favour is fact that the surface is. The speed, she likes the speed. It\u2019s a little slow, slow medium.<\/p>\n \u201cWhereas the other clay court tournaments, I think were faster. So she\u2019s gonna have more time to set up for her shots. And you know, when she walks down that court, again, she\u2019s won it four times. So she feels at home there. And that\u2019s gonna give her maybe two games a set, you know of confidence. But she can work her way back in the first week. She can work her way back and get her game back in the first week of the French. And we\u2019ll see if that happens.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to add one more thing \u2013 it\u2019s like the same thing when I played Martina [Navratilova] and I lost 13 times in a row. It\u2019s like sometimes you have to bluff yourself.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to blind yourself and you have to bluff yourself. You have be confident, even though you don\u2019t feel 100% confident. You just keep talking to yourself and talking yourself into just going, going all out and going for your shots.<\/p>\n \u201cGo back to basics, you know, get your footwork, get your, get, get you footwork working, accelerate with spin and big targets. You know, you have to go back to being that simplicity that made you a champion.\u201d<\/p>\n Watch every moment of the French Open live and exclusive on discovery+<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n READ NEXT: The defending French Open champions to lose in Round 1: Can Swiatek, Alcaraz avoid fate?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Chris Evert identifies a big factor in Iga Swiatek\u2019s slide and gives a brutal aura verdict<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tennis legend Chris Evert has given her verdict on the alarming slide in form suffered by defending French Open champion Iga Swiatek and admits the fear factor she used to take onto a clay court has gone for now. Four-time Roland Garros queen Swiatek has endured a painful clay court season, with heavy defeats at […]<\/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-508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508","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=508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More Tennis News<\/h3>\n
\nIn her eyes, that was tarnished it a little bit.<\/p>\n