Iga Swiatek Finally Confirms the Number of Tournaments She Aims to Miss in the 2026 Season

Iga Swiatek played 81 matches this season, eight more than how many she played last season.

Iga Swiatek Finally Confirms the Number of Tournaments She Aims to Miss in the 2026 Season

Iga Swiatek (Image via X/Iga archive)

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Iga Swiatek has been one of the players who has been openly critical of the number of tennis tournaments played in a calendar year. The Polish star has now hinted that she plans to play fewer tournaments than she did in 2025, despite having a good season on tour in which she won three titles, including a Grand Slam.

Swiatek played 81 matches in the 2025 season and won a remarkable 64 of them, which was only beaten by Aryna Sabalenka. The 24-year-old played 73 matches in 2024, eight fewer than what she played this season, and yet won the Indian Wells, Madrid Open, the Italian Open, and the French Open in Paris.

Meanwhile, this year, despite playing an incredible 81 matches, she only managed to win three titles, and all of them came in the second half of the season. In fact, she reached her first tour-level final this season at the Bad Homburg Open, and that gave her the foundation to win the Wimbledon Championships the following month.

She then went on to claim the Cincinnati Open and then produced a thrilling performance to win the Korean Open. She was expected to give a good performance at the WTA Finals in Riyadh, but failed to do so, winning just one match before crashing out in the round robin stage of the prestigious event.

However, Swiatek has been very outspoken about the amount of tennis on the current WTA Tour schedule. A few weeks ago, her coach, Wim Fissette, had revealed that they plan to skip some tournaments this season notwithstanding the consequences. She finally confirmed that during an interview with The Guardian, stressing that she doesn’t want to play under much stress:

I would like to try missing maybe two tournaments – maybe the ones I feel I haven’t been playing well at anyway – just spending this time on grinding and getting the technique better. I think it will help me also play a little bit better under stress, because my body will remember the proper movements and what it learned during this practice time. Mentally, it can give me a lot of confidence, knowing I worked hard.

Swiatek has not been the only player who has criticized the tour schedule; Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev have done so. They have complained about the number of compulsory tournaments and other events players need to attend to on tour which makes the schedule absolutely hectic.

Iga Swiatek reflects on her Wimbledon Championships triumph

Iga Swiatek had never reached the semi-finals of the Wimbledon Championships before the 2025 season. The World No.2 was dubbed the queen of clay because she played her best on the surface and didn’t do much on grass. But she stunned the tennis world in July, beating Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-0 to win the championship at the All England Club.

Iga Swiatek
Iga Swiatek (Image via X/Jimmy48 Photography)

The title was Swiatek’s sixth career Grand Slam and only one of the season. During the aforementioned interview, she revealed that winning the Wimbledon Championships made the season one that she would never forget in her career. She added that she worked hard with her team ahead of the tournament:

Any season that has a Wimbledon win, I would take without hesitation. I’m super proud of this achievement. This is something I wasn’t expecting to happen this year. I thought I [would] need a couple more years to learn how to play on grass and to use my skills for the surface. But I felt great. We worked hard before Wimbledon to change some tactical patterns I also had in my head and wasn’t really using in previous years.

Swiatek is currently enjoying her off-season after a very busy 2025 season. The Polish star is expected to open her 2026 campaign at the United Cup, representing Poland alongside Hubert Hurkacz. After that, she will then play at the Australian Open in Melbourne.

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