Iga Swiatek On Risk Of Missing Big Event For The First Time In Five Years After French Open Loss

With four French Open titles, this year’s result has undoubtedly left a scar on Iga Swiatek. Her fourth-round loss to Marta Kostyuk not only ensured that the Pole would not have a clay-court title for a second year running, but also meant she finished the clay season with a modest 9-4 win-loss record on the dirt compared to the standards she set for herself. As things stand, the Pole now risks missing one of the sport’s flagship events at the end of the year.

Iga has qualified for the year-ending WTA Finals in each of the last five seasons and won the event in 2023. That streak shows her consistency and dominance at the top of the sport. She once held the WTA Race Rankings at World No. 1 in 2022 with more than 10,000 points, a total that included two major titles and four WTA 1000 titles. Past dominance matters less than current form, and Swiatek’s 2026 results tell a different story. She has gathered just 1,823 points this year and sits 11th on the Race, according to journalist Jose Morgado on X.

Her 21-10 win-loss record looks solid at first glance, but if she wants to reach the WTA Finals again, she needs to lift her level. Swiatek started the season with three straight quarterfinal exits, then lost in the opening round at the Miami Open. That early loss had not happened to her in more than 70 previous events.

On clay, she exited again in the quarterfinals at Stuttgart and retired early at the Madrid Open. Rome brought a resurgence, yet Elina Svitolina stopped her in the semifinals. Svitolina has had the better of Iga Swiatek this season.

Swiatek’s fourth-round loss to Marta Kostyuk at Roland Garros makes a Top 8 spot on the Race Rankings look unlikely. Mirra Andreeva, Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina, Elina Svitolina, and Marta Kostyuk are all having strong seasons, and they sit ahead of her. Even Sorana Cirstea and Victoria Mboko are ahead of the Pole. Diana Shnaider reached the semifinals in Paris and now trails Swiatek by just 200 points on the Race.

Apart from the performances, it is the things that the Pole has openly admitted in her press conferences that have been an indication that she has been struggling on Tour this year. After her French Open loss, she confessed to feeling tense in crucial moments of the match against Kostyuk, moments when she could not capitalize despite leading on the scoreboard.

“I was very tense. I feel like I can work on that,” she revealed in her post-match press conference, “Maybe it’s not going to take one week or one month. Maybe it’s going to take even a season or something. But I need to believe that I can work through this and not be thrown off so quickly. There’s a reason for it, so there’s a solution too.”

However, half of the season is still left with the grass court season, followed by the hard-court swings in North America and Asia, which should give the Pole ample opportunities for amassing enough points to make the cut for Saudi Arabia at the end of the year.

Iga Swiatek Could Still Make a Run for the WTA Finals in the Second Half of the Season

The WTA season still has at least two Grand Slam events and four WTA 1000 events left, which should give Iga Swiatek opportunities to earn massive points. But for the Pole to do that, she needs to have deep runs at Wimbledon and at the US Open. She is the defending champion in London, and that will add pressure on her to replicate her form from last year. She is a former champion in New York as well, but has been knocked out of the competition in the quarterfinals in the last two years.

As far as the WTA 1000 events are concerned, the Pole has modest records at Canada and in Wuhan, whereas she is the defending champion in Cincinnati and won the title in Beijing back in 2023. Title defenses are always extra pressure, as players tend to lose a lot of points if they make early exits.

She is currently No.3 on the live WTA Rankings with 6733 points, but should she have early exits in Wimbledon and Cincinnati, where she is the defending champion, there’s a decent chance the Pole will go out of the Top 10 of the global rankings.

The Pole seems to be in a state of confusion about her game style, which began when she consciously switched her game to suit the faster surfaces last year to succeed on grass and hard courts. Doing this was detrimental to her topspin game, which made her almost invincible on clay a few years ago. Even though she has already switched coaches this year, it still seems the World No. 3 is stuck between styles, and her serve has deserted her in crucial moments.

With her competitors having great seasons and seemingly finding a way to counter her, Swiatek needs to get some big results her way by the time the US Open starts, or else the Pole will be struggling to qualify for the WTA Finals for the first time since 2019.

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