Iga Świątek hires Francisco Roig, former coach of Rafael Nadal, to replace Wim Fissette

Iga Świątek has hired Francisco Roig, a longtime coach of Rafael Nadal who most recently worked with Emma Raducanu.

Świątek confirmed the hire on social media Thursday. Roig replaces Wim Fissette, who Świątek split with following her shock loss to compatriot Magda Linette at the Miami Open.

“Welcome to the team, Francisco! Very excited for this new chapter” she wrote on Instagram Stories.

Świątek parted ways with Fissette in late March after a 18-month partnership, in which she won Wimbledon and began shifting her style of tennis back to the controlled aggressiveness and counterpunching that defined her early success. The shift was successful, but also left Świątek at times caught between two styles, her earlier one and the simpler, all-out attack that she developed with Tomasz Wiktorowski.

The latter style brought her four of her six Grand Slam titles, the longest win-streak in women’s tennis this century (37) and over 100 weeks as world No. 1, but its directness ultimately made it possible to figure out.

When under pressure, Świątek would fall back on trying to attack too hard, too soon, overhitting and spinning herself into a flurry of errors. Instead, she wants players to never believe they will get free points from her, citing a desire to return to being “a wall” during an interview with Sport.pl this week.

Fissette also helped to improve Świątek’as serve, encouraging her to go for more precise targets, but Roig, who is even more technically focused than the coach he is replacing, may be able to add even more fluidity to her motion.

The world No. 4’s serve can be effective, but also has numerous hitch points at which it can go wrong. And while Fissette largely stopped Świątek from suffering defeats marked by a whirlwind of errors off the ground, she could still fall into a different cycle.

A lack of cheap points on serve would cause her to try to end points too quickly, because playing both service and return games effectively from neutral or defense was too much. Trying to end points too quickly would see her fall behind in service games, and put even more pressure on a shot delivering no release valve under pressure.

Roig, 58, worked alongside Nadal’s principal coaches — the player’s uncle, Toni, Marc Lopez and Carlos Moya — for all 22 of his Grand Slam titles. He left the team in 2022, going on to coach Italy’s Matteo Berrettini between 2023 and 2024 before a short stint with Raducanu that broke down over a clash of playing styles, despite yielding initially positive results.

Świątek’s next tournament is the Stuttgart Tennis Grand Prix, which begins Apr. 11.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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