Coach Wim Fissette Explains Why Iga Swiatek Failed to Win Title on Clay Swing This Season: “It’s Not Easy”

Iga Swiatek will be bidding to complete the Career Grand Slam in next year's Australian Open.

Coach Wim Fissette Explains Why Iga Swiatek Failed to Win Title on Clay Swing This Season: “It’s Not Easy”

Wim Fissette, Iga Swiatek (Images via X/Jimmie48 Photography)

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Iga Swiatek is the winner of 25 titles, 10 of which she lifted on clay. Those trophies also include four French Open titles.

Last year, the Pole took home three trophies on the European clay swing, winning at the Madrid Open, Italian Open, and the French Open. That win in Paris, in fact, was Swiatek’s third consecutive victory.

This year, however, Swiatek struggled a great deal at the start. She was making deep runs, but progressed to the final only when the grass swing started. Before this season, Swiatek had never reached a grass-court final. It was quite unexpected, especially given that she failed to win a title on clay.

Swiatek, without any doubt, is the best clay-court player on the WTA Tour at the moment. But this year, after losing to Jelena Ostapenko in the Stuttgart Open final, Swiatek was eliminated in the semifinal of the Madrid Open by eventual runner-up Coco Gauff.

At the Italian Open next, she suffered a straight-set defeat at the hands of Danielle Collins in the third round, while at the French Open, Swiatek failed to complete a four-peat, losing to eventual runner-up Aryna Sabalenka in three sets in the last four. Another surprising thing about this defeat was that Swiatek was bageled by the four-time Grand Slam champion in the third set.

Last year, the 24-year-old parted ways with Polish coach Tomasz Wiktorowski and added Belgian coach Wim Fissette to her team. Fissette recently sat for an interview with the Break Point podcast, during which he explained why Swiatek failed to win a title on the European clay swing.

A tennis season always has highs and lows. It’s part of tennis, and the top players they get out of the lows pretty quickly, and I think that’s what Iga did this year. The clay court season was a season where she could only lose. The expectations were sky high. I’ve never been with a player where the expectations for a certain season were that high.

Wim Fissette said

Swiatek finally got her hands on a trophy after double-bageling Amanda Anisimova in the Wimbledon final. She then went on to win the Cincinnati Open and the Korea Open.

You go into a new season where the season before you won Madrid, Rome, Paris (French Open). So you cannot win points. You can only do less good than the year before.

Wim Fissette added

At the WTA Finals, Swiatek, the winner in 2023, failed to reach the semifinal for the second consecutive time.

Andy Roddick on Iga Swiatek’s Wimbledon win

Iga Swiatek‘s incredible turnaround on grass swing has impressed Andy Roddick, who has once again lauded the youngster on his Served podcast. Roddick thinks Swiatek finding her form on her worst surface is a crazy story.

Iga Swiatek
Iga Swiatek (Image via X/Iga archive)

Iga, turning her season around at Wimbledon, that was a crazy story. It’s Iga, so we expect great things, and we’ve been preconditioned to her being one of the best with Aryna [Sabalenka] and Ash [Barty] of her generation. But not coming through on clay, looking bad at times on your favorite surface, and then somehow finding a way to be dominant on your worst surface. That’s the stuff that legends are made of.

The next major event is the 2026 Australian Open, the main draw of which is scheduled to start on January 18. Swiatek will be bidding to complete the Career Grand Slam.

She has yet to progress beyond the semifinals, reaching the stage twice: in 2022 and 2025. This year, eventual winner Madison Keys knocked her out in three sets. Swiatek will become the seventh woman to complete the Career Grand Slam if she wins the Australian Open.

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