Iga Świątek’s performance at the US Open Grand Slam has come to an end. Our tennis player failed to repeat her feat from 2022, when she was unrivaled on the New York courts.
Despite this, the Pole performed better than last year. She reached the quarterfinals, where she was admittedly the favorite, but ultimately she couldn’t find a way to beat the American Jessica Pegula . The world’s sixth racket won 6:2, 6:4.
Before the tournament began, the WTA world ranking leader admitted that she had lower expectations of herself than usual. However, with each match in New York, hopes for another excellent performance in the USA grew.
Świątek’s game against Pegula was analyzed by former tennis player and current coach Michał Dembek . He first noticed the Pole’s serve.
– Iga had a streak of winning 26 service games in a row and it was quickly broken. In the first set, the key was the serve, which did not work for her at all. A little over 30 percent of the first serve? Even a weaker player than Pegula would have used it, and the American, in such shape, with such self-confidence, which really impressed her during this match, took advantage of it all the more – he emphasized in an interview with WP SportoweFakty.
The American quickly began to present herself in a way that would take advantage of her opponent’s problems. – It is worth emphasizing that Iga lost her serve twice in the first set and each time she made double service faults on break points. This shows that Pegula’s pressure, who aggressively entered the second serves, brought luck, because Iga tried to take more risks and mistakes appeared – assessed Dembek.
This is what Christmas was missing
From the very first game of this competition, the match did not go the way the Pole wanted. The even fight in the first part began only when Pegula already had a solid advantage (4:0).
The second set was definitely more even. However, when her opponent jumped back for the second time, our tennis player was unable to respond. – What Iga did for most of the match was grist to the American’s mill – noted the co-creator of the Sofa Sportowa channel.
Dembek also explained what, in his opinion, the Pole lacked to make the result of this competition different. – Pegula plays very flat balls that fly low, which does not suit our tennis player, especially when she is late and has problems with turning low balls. Here, she lacked playing on her own terms, taking the initiative. The American did not want to open up angles for Idze, who could play a much higher parabola from the forehand, to play higher above the net and push her opponent away from the baseline. In my opinion, she lacked the technical side, Świątek wanted to show that she can play fast and win this way – he noted.
Our interlocutor constantly follows the matches of the WTA world ranking leader. For this reason, he noticed that Świątek’s defeat by Pegula was not much different from, among others, her last defeat by the Chinese Qinwen Zheng.
– It’s worrying that Iga loses another match in a very similar way. When things don’t go well, there’s no plan B in sight. I know that Tomek Wiktorowski said recently that this isn’t true, I’m not talking about his fault alone, because I doubt he doesn’t see that Iga plays monotonously and wouldn’t want to change. On the court, however, Iga makes her own decisions and it’s clear that when the score is worse during the match, she starts to hurry and takes more and more risks. Then the mistakes start to pile up and that’s why there are so many of them. There’s a lack of variety in playing, a cool head – said the former tennis player and current coach.
– There are trips to the toilet during the match, but I don’t know how they help Iga. I’m not saying she shouldn’t do it, I understand that she wants to cool down, but despite everything, there’s no change after that. Iga always does the same thing with increasingly worse results and that’s worrying – he added.
He noticed it in Iga’s team
Dembek, who watched the match between Świątek and Pegula at night, also noted our tennis player’s boxing. In his opinion, in this match, it did not help the 23-year-old.
– I also missed the energy in her team, as if there was no chemistry there, the mood seemed to be grave. This is also surprising in relation to what happened in this match. I have the impression that there was a lack of support for Iga, everyone was so depressed – confessed our interlocutor.
Świątek’s communication with the coach was not the best either.
An important appeal against hate
As usual, after our tennis player’s defeat, there was a lot of criticism and hate towards her. For this reason, Dembek decided to address the behavior of fans after Świątek’s lost matches.
– I want to emphasize that Iga, even if someone calls her a one-dimensional player, which in my opinion is not true, we have never had such a Polish tennis player. Even if she wins “only” and exclusively Roland Garros for the next 5-6 years, she will still be the best player in the history of our country. It is worth giving her respect for what she has already done – emphasized our interlocutor.
