It is rightly said, “Success comes to those who act”. Iga Swiatek is an example of this quote. She became the very first Polish tennis player, ranked no. 1 by the Women’s Tennis Association. She was born on May 31st, 2001 in Warsaw. She is a three-time major singles champion, which made her the first player from Poland to win major singles titles, entering the top 50 on the WTA tour in 2019.
Iga Swiatek’s Early Life and Childhood
Her father, Tomasz Swiatek, was a former “rower” who competed in “quadruple sculls,” and her mother is an orthodontist. She has one sibling, Agata, who is three years older than her and is currently pursuing medical studies. Her father started training his daughters from a very young age. He made it absolutely clear from the very beginning that he wanted to make athletics a part of his daughter’s daily life. His vision was to influence his daughters to choose “individual sport” rather than “team sport”, as the means of success is completely in the hands of an individual player in an “individual sport”.
Iga Swiatek followed her elder sister and went for daily tennis practice as she wanted to become like her. Slowly and gradually, she turned into a champion. When she was just 15 years old, she reached a career-high ranking of 5 as a junior player, and at the age of just 13, she earned grade-4 titles.
Initial Career
Iga Swiatek’s career has been an inspiring one; she has never lost more than five consecutive singles matches and she aced her game in the French Open title in 2020. After winning the Italian Open, she even got a chance to enter the top 10 of the WTA rankings for the very first time in 2021. Iga Swiatek acquired the world No. 2 position in 2022 by achieving continuous WTA 1000 titles at “Qatar” and “Indian Well”.
She started achieving trophies and awards at the age of just 13. Her journey began when she made her debut at the 2016 French Open, reaching the quarterfinals in singles and doubles. Throughout her teenage years, she has been hustling hard to reach where she is today at the age of just 21. She earned a grade 1 position at Traralgon Junior College in 2017.
Success is the result of some consecutive failures in life. Swiatek also failed in her opening match in Australia, and after that, she lost to Elena Rybakina in her first grade A singles final at Trofeo Bonfiglio, after which she had to go through right ankle surgery, which kept her out of matches for seven months. Following this break, she returned to the French Open and reached the singles semifinals. Her determination made 2018 one of the best seasons she has ever had, even though she competed in just two grand slam tournaments.
Iga Swiatek’s Wimbledon episode was an extraordinary example of Swiatek’s determination. She played only singles at Wimbledon and won in three sets, which led her to achieve the ‘Glad Slam singles’ title by defeating ‘Leonie King’ in the finals after she played her last match as a junior in the ‘2018 Summer Youth Olympics’ in collaboration with ‘Kaja Juvan’.
Later stages of her Career
After completing the initial stages of junior tennis games, Iga Swiatek started competing in national-level tournaments. We can divide her journey to date into five phases:
- 2016 to 2018: She completed all seven ITF final stages making her debut in the Top 50.
- 2020: Going beyond and landing in the top 20 debut
- 2021: Ranked fourth worldwide
- 2022: The world’s number one ranking
Iga Swiatek began her career in 2016 and, in 2018, she played seven ITF singles matches, winning all seven. At the young age of 17 years old, she entered the top 200, rising from number 298 to number 180 in just a few weeks. She crossed all four levels, starting from $10,000 to $15,000 to $25,000 and, lastly, $60,000.
In her teenage years, at 15 years of age, she achieved three titles, and the fourth one was accomplished in 2018, after which she won $60,000 simultaneously in just two weeks at the NEK Ladies Open in Hungary and the second one at the Montreux Ladies Open in Switzerland. Her success was a sheer example of determination as she did not deviate from her goal even after her “Wimbledon success’.
She had never played on the WTA tour before 2019, so she was unable to qualify at the ‘Auckland Open, but after that, she geared back and qualified for the first WTA main draw at the Australian Open, and in the next tournaments she also qualified for the first WTA at the ‘Ladies Open Lugano’, defeating Viktoria Kuzmova in the second round and Caroline Wozniacki in the third round to enter the first ‘top 50’.
In 2020, Iga Swiatek entered the top 20 with a debut win and defeated 2019 runner-up Marketa Vondrousova. One of her greatest accomplishments was defeating world number two, Simona Halep, which put her on the top 20 list. After this, she defeated world number six, Sofia Kenin, and became the first player representing “Poland” to win a grand slam singles title.
In 2021, she found herself at world number four. Her journey started at the Australian Open, where she defeated Arantxa Rus, Camila Giorgi, and Fiona Ferro, after which she defeated Belinda Bencic in the finals to enter the top 15 in March 2021.
Iga Swiatek defeated top-ranked players like “Kaja Juvan”, “Rebecca Peterson”, “Anett Kontaveit” and “Marta Kostyuk” as a result of which she secured a rank of no. 42 in doubles for the very first time in her career. She did not stop after her success because her vision was long-term; she climbed to number four after defeating Heather Watson and qualified for the WTA finals for the first time in her career.
2022 was the year when she became the world’s number one tennis player. She started her journey at Adelaide International, where she defeated many players but failed in the semifinals, after which she played at Sydney International, but unfortunately due to her rib injury she could not participate. But due to her never-give-up attitude, she entered the Australian Open, where she defeated many players in all three rounds and reached the quarter-finals in the fourth round.
After Iga Swiatek entered the WTA 1000 final, she defeated Clara Touson and other players in straight sets to occupy rank no. 2, and in the following week, she achieved the world no. 1 position because Ashleigh Barty, who was at no. 1 position, got retirement and was removed from the rankings, which made Iga Swastik the world number 1 Polish tennis player in singles.
Playing style
As Iga Swiatek has struggled her way to becoming the world’s number one tennis player, it is extremely crucial that we learn from her playing style.
It has been observed that she has an aggressive and focused game style. Even though her backhand and forehand are full of energy and power, she measures all the margins and constructs points very carefully to hit a winner.
Her coach in her initial career days was Michal Kaznowski, who had taught Iga Swiatek during her teenage days till 2016 at the French Open, after which Jolanta Rusin became her trainer till the 2019 US Open. Both the trainers had great athletic and leadership skills, which gave her the foundation for what she has become today, and her current coach is Tomasz Wiktorowski.
Swiatek’s contribution to society
Iga Swiatek has involved herself in charity by getting associated with various organizations like “The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity”. She has also donated $50,000 of her prize money to support people with mental health disorders.
She believes that contributing to society is an integral part of the human species. Therefore, she has put up her winning racket from the French Open at auction, and the money generated from selling the racket was used by her to fund new equipment for paediatric, head, hearing, and ENT diagnostics. She is actively involved in providing quality education to all the children and works towards better school sports facilities.