The Big One: Iga Swiatek is redefining dominance

INTERVIEW: Iga Swiatek at the Tennis Channel desk after her 6-2, 6-3 win over Daria Kasatakina.

FORT WORTH, Texas—Iga Swiatek is putting the finishing touches on one of the greatest two-Slam seasons in tennis history.

Coming into this week’s WTA Finals, the 21-year-old Roland Garros and US Open champion is 64-8, with more than half of that victory total amassed during an indomitable 37-match win streak. It began in February, on hard courts in Doha…kept on going through the entire clay-court season…and finally ended in June, on grass courts in England. From the quarterfinals of Indian Wells through the quarterfinals of Stuttgart—13 matches—Swiatek didn’t lose a set. Only once was she even taken to a tiebreak.

She has lifted as many trophies this year as she has lost matches.

Ironically, like most historic sports campaigns, the absurd numbers aren’t enough to properly describe her dominance. But don’t take it from me.

She’s really a leader for us. She’s tough to play—very present physically on the court; she goes for all of her shots. She’s an inspiration for me, personally. World No. 2 Ons Jabeur

Playing Iga is different than playing other girls—I would know, I played her quite a lot this year. She plays heavy topspin, more of a men’s-style game. Day in and day out, you usually don’t play girls that hit like that. World No. 3 Jessica Pegula

I don’t know how long the win streak was, but it was long—I was part of that, unfortunately! But I think it’s easy to celebrate someone’s on-court accomplishments when they’re a really nice person, and I think she’s one of the stars for our sport. World No. 4 Coco Gauff

At the US Open we had a great match, super close. I didn’t get this win, but hopefully the next one will be mine! She’s moving well, hitting the ball really clean—that’s why she’s No. 1. World No. 7 Aryna Sabalenka

You don’t need to be a Top 10 player who’s stood on the opposite side of the net from Swiatek, though, to grasp why she has taken command of the WTA Tour. It’s another part of Iga’s ascent that goes beyond her sublime statistics. You can see it in her relentlessness and in her reflexes; in her precision and her power; in her clear comfort in the spotlight.

When asked about her proudest off-court moment this season on Tuesday at the WTA Finals, Swiatek answered quickly: "Handling the pressure of being world No. 1. Focusing on proving myself and the others that actually I'm in a good place when I'm being worth No. 1, and it's my place to be."

Swiatek felt like a natural No. 1 even before she won her first major title off clay, at the US Open. In her quarterfinal match against Pegula (0-4 against Iga in 2022), the American in the midst of a career year red-lined her baseline game because Swiatek’s tennis demanded it. But the result was the same: a straight-set loss. Pegula understood the assignment when I asked her about it, in between sips of Heineken, that night in New York, even if she came up short. She reiterated the point in Fort Worth.

“She just does a good job of making you win the point multiple times throughout—I think sometimes I have to win the point three times,” says Pegula. “I think that’s the difference of what she does, she plays every point like it’s the last point. Over the course of a match, that can put a lot of pressure on you to keep executing and keep performing.”

Another strong opponent took their best shot and cracking the Swiatek code on Tuesday: Daria Kasatkina. The Russian has a win over Swiatek, last year on grass in Eastbourne, by the strange score of 4-6, 6-0, 6-1. But in her four subsequent matches against the Pole, the combined score went like this: 6-2, 6-3, 6-1, 6-2, 6-3, 6-0, 6-2, 6-1.

She’ll always have Eastbourne.

As for Fort Worth, it wasn’t a good sign for Kasatkina when, during the warm-up for their round-robin match in the Tracy Austin Group, Swiatek successfully punctuated a pick-up volley with a 360-degree turn. Worse was being broken in her opening service game And while the world No. 8 did well to hold serve and avoid a 0-4 deficit, Swiatek halted any semblance of momentum with a comfortable hold, en route to a 36-minute, 6-2 first set.

About 10 minutes later, Kasatkina was broken at love to fall behind 2-0. And while the conclusion was more than mere formality—Swiatek saved three break points—there was never a moment in which the possibility of a Kasatkina comeback seemed viable.

“I use visualization when my technique is a little bit off,” Swiatek, who attributes her success to her mental prep, told Blair Henley on the court after her 6-2, 6-3 win. “It wasn't like that today.”

Dictating the terms of nearly every rally, and making inroads on nearly every return game, Swiatek overmatched Kasatkina in every way. It will take an inspired effort of aggression to prevent Swiatek from collecting title nine in 2022: something like peak Sabalenka, who can hit the cover off the ball, or the Coco breakthrough we’re approaching but haven’t quite reached.

It will take a complete performance to compete with, as Pegula put it, “a really complete player.”

The numeric gap between Swiatek and world No. 2 Jabeur is 5,780 ranking points, and she’s a +125 favorite to win this prestigious tournament. But the gap between Iga and the rest of the tour somehow feels even wider. A disparity akin to Rafa and the field at Roland Garros.

And it's not like Swiatek isn't getting her opponents' best efforts, either.

"I kind of just forgot about it and just focus on myself and I didn't really care if I'm being hunted or I'm hunting, you know," said Swiatek about the separation she's made from her contemporaries. "I just kind of focus on getting experience and getting more touch with these balls and this courts."

Fitting that Swiatek has looked up to Rafa, and just completed her own clay-court sweep. This week, she’ll look to accomplish something than even the Spaniard hasn’t done: win a season-ending championship. I’d say she’s off to a good start.