Iga Swiatek’s coach, Tomasz Wiktorowski, is not given to overstatement.
In the emotional aftermath of Swiatek’s win over Karolina Muchova in the French Open final, as his Polish compatriot sank to her haunches, overwhelmed with emotion, Wiktorowski stood impassive. The 42-year-old looked more like a man who had just discovered a mistake on his bank statement than someone who had just guided the world’s best tennis player to a fourth grand slam victory.
So when Wiktorowski later revealed that injury almost prevented Swiatek from appearing at Roland Garros, he did so with a matter-of-fact air. From everyone else, though, there was a sharp intake of breath. Swiatek, after all, had encouraged us to believe that the thigh problem she suffered in Rome, where she was forced to retire early in the final set of her quarter-final against Elena Rybakina, “shouldn’t be anything serious”. In hindsight, perhaps greater weight should have been given to the final message she posted on social media before flying to Paris. “Booking my flight,” wrote Swiatek. “Fingers crossed, please!”
“As we know, she was injured badly in Indian Wells, then we skipped Miami,” Wiktorowski told former world No 2 Alex Corretja, who now works as a pundit for Eurosport.
“Then [came] Rome. From the very last moment, we weren’t sure if she would be able to play here. That’s why it was the most difficult match since I am her coach.”
The challenge was mental as well as physical. Any player needs time to regain trust in their body after an injury; for one like Swiatek, whose physicality is the bedrock of her game, that need is only magnified. At a time when the 22-year-old was trying to come to terms with the psychological burden of a title defence, it was one more thing to deal with.
“Iga felt more pressure than last year,” said Wiktorowski. “[It was a] huge match, the final of a grand slam.
“Being here back-to-back, it means something, but also, you know very well how it is, you feel it from inside, and you demand from yourself more and more and more, and then you hit the wall.
“You have to step back and keep it going, and she made it. She passed through this tough moment, passed through all the tough moments this year.”
Those junctures have included defeats to Rybakina at the Australian Open and in Indian Wells, where Swiatek suffered a rib injury that left her side-lined for more than a month, as well as a pair of losses in finals, to Barbora Krejcikova in Dubai and Aryna Sabalenka in Madrid.
Yet the good moments have far outweighed the difficult ones, particularly given the pressure of living up to the historic achievements of last season, when Swiatek set the bar stratospherically high with a 37-match winning streak. In seven tournaments since the Australian Open, the Pole has made five finals, mounting successful title defences in Qatar, Stuttgart and Paris. It has been an outstanding six months, combining passages of dominance redolent of last year with further evidence that Swiatek is more than ready to battle when occasion demands.
Both aspects of the defending champion’s game were in evidence at Roland Garros. Having swept into the semi-finals without dropping a set, she fended off a stern challenge from Beatriz Haddad Maia, saving a set point with a late display of aggression. Having never previously dropped a set in a grand slam final, Swiatek twice recovered from a break down in the decider to see off Muchova in the final. The resilience Swiatek demonstrated at the sharp end of the tournament offers further evidence of the continuing evolution in her game overseen by Wiktorowski in tandem with Daria Abramowicz, the sports psychologist who has been a mainstay of her rise, and Maciej Ryszczuk, her physical trainer and physio.
“This one, for sure, was a little bit tougher in terms of, injuries and the pressure, and also coming back to this tournament as a defending champion,” said Swiatek of her third Roland Garros victory in four years.
“I needed to really handle that. I’m super happy that I managed to do that and that Daria helped me, as well, because for sure these past three weeks weren’t easy.
“[It’s been a] team effort also, Maciej taking care of my health and actually managing these little injuries that happened. We know that it’s going to happen in sport, but he’s the reason basically I was able to compete, both after Indian Wells – I came back really quickly – and after Rome.
“So, really, shout-out to the team – because without them, I wouldn’t be here.”
Team effort or not, Swiatek increasingly stands alone as the standard bearer for her generation. With her latest win, she becomes the youngest player to win four majors since Serena Williams, and the youngest to defend the French Open title since Monica Seles won three in a row as a teenager between 1990 and 1992. Swiatek also joins Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic , Venus Williams and Naomi Osaka as one of only five active players with four or more slams.
It is rarefied company indeed. No wonder, as he embraced Swiatek in the stands, even Wiktorowski allowed himself a smile.