Who is Iga Swiatek? Get to know Coco Gauff’s rival

Since Serena Williams retired from tennis, no player has taken up the mantle of being the dominant force in women’s tennis more than Iga Swiatek. Swiatek holds the record for the longest win streak on the WTA tour in the 21st Century and is a five time Grand Slam champion but she has not done so without competition.

Swiatek, the first Polish player ever to reach world number one, was top of the WTA rankings for 127 consecutive weeks right up until just a couple of weeks ago, when she fell behind Aryna Sabalenka.

Coco Gauff's rival Iga Swiatek looks to return to world number one at the WTA finals

Swiatek faces Coco Gauff on Tuesday 5th November 2024 at the season-ending WTA finals, and before second faces third in the world, get to know the Polish tennis ace.

Warsaw’s rising star Iga Swiatek

Swiatek was born in 2001 in Warsaw. She was born to a former Olympic rower Tomasz and followed in the footsteps of her sister, who started out as a tennis player. In the early stages of Swiatek’s career she won the Wimbledon girls’ championships despite entering the draw unseeded and drawing the top seed in the first round, and by 2019, at just 18 years old Swiatek was already ranked in the world's top 50.

Swiatek: 'The Queen of Clay'

Swiatek was never Roland Garros girl's champion but she has more than made up for that since. The Pole has won the past three French Open Championships in a row playing some wonderful tennis on the way to those consecutive victories. In just her second appearance at a Grand Slam, Swiatek made it to the fourth round, beating a top 20 WTA-ranked player for the first time, besting Wang Qiang who was ranked 16th at the time.

When she returned to the tournament it would be at the rearranged tournament in September 2020 and she would take home the trophy, becoming the lowest-ranked player to win Roland Garros since the WTA rankings began, beating favorite Simona Halep along the way. Swiatek could not repeat the feat in 2021 but would do so in 2022, 23’ and 24’ earning the nick-name 'the Queen of Clay.'

US Open Victory

After Swiatek took victory in Roland Garros for the second time, there was concern that she was becoming a one-trick pony, with both her Grand Slam successes to that point coming in France. So in 2022, she arrived in New York with a point to prove. While Swiatek had her best performance at the Australian Open making the semi-finals that year, Wimbledon had been a disappointment losing to Alize Cornet in the third round after entering the tournament as the top seed.

Followed around Flushing Meadows by the Netflix camera team, filming  Break Point at the US Open, she put any concerns to rest. Swiatek won the tournament, only dropping two sets on the way to the victory. One of those dropped sets included the first set of her semi-final against her big rival Sabalenka but Swiatek showed immense heart to storm back to victory.

WTA Finals champion

Swiatek is the reigning WTA Finals champion, last year she did not lose a single set on the way to winning the trophy. She avenged her semi-final defeat in the WTA Finals of the previous year to beat Sabalenka to make the final and take home the all-important end-of-season trophy. Extra motivation will be added to her title defense this year knowing that three wins for Sabalenka will ensure her rival is world number one going into the new year, victory in Saudi Arabia for the Pole would be a timely reminder of her continued intentions.

New coach for Iga Swiatek, will it affect her?

The latest news for Swiatek is that she split with her former coach Tomasz Wiktorowski with whom she won four Grand Slam titles. She has continued to struggle in the hard court season and exiting from the US Open in the quarterfinals seemed to hit her hard.

She announced in the past few weeks the hire of a new coach Wimm Fissette. Fissette has coached some of the biggest names in the sport, such as Naomi Osaka, Simona Halep and Angelique Kerber. Fissette has a track record of success on the hard courts and will look to translate that into the talented Pole’s game.

How have Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek matches ended in the past?

The USA number one Coco Gauff and the former world number one Iga Swiatek have met twelve times on the WTA tour including twice at the WTA end-of-year finals. Swiatek, the older more experienced player unsurprisingly has a positive record against Gauff winning 11 of their 12 matches against each other. The pair most recently met in the semi-finals of Roland Garros where Swiatek took victory just as she did in the previous two years, in a tournament the Pole has won four out of the six times she has entered.

Only one of the encounters has gone the distance and that was Gauff’s three-set victory at the Cincinnati Masters in 2023. Their most consequential meeting was one of their first, in the 2022 Roland Garros final where Swiatek, the number one seed took a comfortable victory against the 18th seeded Gauff. Gauff has been bageled in both of her defeats to Swiatek at the season-ending WTA finals and will be looking to avoid a similar fate this time out. When Gauff and Swiatek have met in the past there have been fireworks, both fierce ground-strokers and with Coco Gauff reaching her potential we expect to see this rivalry blossom.