Iga Swiatek faces mounting pressure ahead of Australian Open

“It’s not the fact of her [Swiatek] losing to Bencic and Gauff playing out of their minds.” Catherine Whitaker said on The Tennis Podcast.

“It’s the pattern of these defeats. I think, and it’s a continuation of a pattern that we saw last year, and we were wary about being too alarmist about the defeats that seemed to… these matches that seemed to get away from Swiatek and crumble before her and our eyes, because she won Wimbledon last year.

Whitaker went on to explain what exactly bothers her most about how Swiatek handles those situations, highlighting a specific part of her game that is also linked to previous poor losses.

“As we discussed in all of our various review shows, we think she would have signed for last season at the start of it.

“It was a good season for Iga Swiatek, and yet there was this slightly dark underbelly of defeats that looked like this, where once the match got away from her, once her opponent gets her teeth into the match, she starts malfunctioning, and appears to resort to the default of hitting harder and taking more and more risk; the opposite of what we understand that her project is with Wim Fissette.

“And it’s becoming pretty maddening to watch because it’s the definition of madness: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is the proverbial definition of madness. Yet it feels like this is what we’re watching in these types of matches.”

Matt Roberts picked up from there: “It is a problem. And you use that word – ‘pattern.’ Now it feels like when Swiatek goes up against fellow top players. More often than not at the moment, she’s not winning those matches.”

“And she always used to have dominant records over fellow top players but that is something that has really changed in the last year or so.”

“And I think it’s because these players are good enough now to push her into stressful situations where she seems caught between playing styles.”

Coco Gauff’s advantage over Iga Swiatek

Gauff, the world number four, beat Swiatek 6-4, 6-2 in Sydney, and Whitaker felt it showed a lot about the difference between them at the moment.

She said: “The Gauff match up I feel particularly sheds a light on the problem with Iga Swiatek, because Gauff is loose in that matchup in a way she doesn’t seem to be a lot… a lot of her serving and forehand issues do seem to kind of miraculously evaporate when she’s on the court with Swiatek now.

“And Gauff knows if she can hang in the rallies long enough, Swiatek will make a mistake; and nobody hangs in a rally better than Coco Gauff. She makes balls nobody else can make. I reckon she makes 25 per cent more balls than pretty much anybody else in the WTA; it’s that ridiculous.

“And yeah she’s like ‘okay, I’ll rest on my positives and you’re going to cough up enough errors for me to do this thing and I’m comfortable in that dynamic.’ It’s slightly alarming to watch.”