After struggling for form on both clay and grass, Iga Swiatek upped her game in the US swing. She clinched her first singles crown of the season at the Canadian Open and followed that up by reaching the semifinals of the Cincinnati Masters. She then had a decent run at the US Open and made it to the Round of 16. But Swiatek’s coach, Francisco Roig, believes that there’s still a big room for improvement and has made his expectations clear for the upcoming Asian swing.
“I would like to see a player who just plays and doesn’t feel like she has to send winners,” he told Radio ZET. “She is supposed to cause discomfort to her rival. Sometimes I observe exchanges in which I get the impression that Iga makes a mistake earlier than the other player just because she takes too many risks and wants to play too fast.”
“Sometimes it’s worth calming down and just playing the right shot. You don’t have to try to hurt your opponent at every point. You can cause her problems with the quality of the shot, not with the fact that everything is played very quickly. And that’s what we’re working on.”
Though Swiatek did improve her form significantly in the US and also clinched a title, her rank is still down at No. 9. The season hasn’t been that great for her as a whole, and her shocking elimination from the US Open is a great example of that. The Pole took on Qinwen Zheng in the Round of 16 and led the first set 5-0 at one stage.
But she unexpectedly capitulated from there on and lost the next seven games in a row. Zheng claimed the first set and proved to be the better player in the second as well, winning the match 7-5, 6-3. While the US swing may have concluded on a disappointing note for Swiatek, her main goal now will be to have a strong Asian swing and qualify for the WTA Finals.
Swiatek is well and truly in the race to qualify for the year-end event. But she is currently outside the qualification places and doesn’t have a lot of tournaments left to bring a major change to her ranking. The Pole has appeared in every edition of the WTA Finals since 2021. She even won the title in 2023 and finished the season as the World No. 1. But the 2026 season certainly hasn’t been the same.
Roig is well aware of the tournament’s importance and has stated that qualifying for it is currently his and Swiatek’s main goal for the remainder of the season.
“It is certainly still very far away, but yes – this is our goal. However, if we do not achieve it, the world will not collapse. We will have a little more time to prepare as best as possible for the next season. I talked to Iga about the WTA Finals. The things are that if we do well in the two upcoming tournaments, we can still be dependent on the results achieved by our rivals,” he stated.
The Asian swing consists of several important tournaments. This includes Masters events in Beijing and Wuhan. WTA 500 events will also be played in Singapore, Ningbo and Tokyo. Swiatek will have the opportunity to add a lot of points to her tally during the season.
Having not signed up for the event in Singapore, Swiatek is likely to begin her Asian swing at the Beijing Masters. The tournament will begin on September 30 and will be the first of the two Masters events that will be played in the Asian swing.
Swiatek won’t have many points to defend in either of the tournaments. This is because she exited the Beijing Masters in the Round of 16 last year and had been eliminated from the quarterfinals in Wuhan. So, she won’t have a lot of pressure on her shoulders and will be able to focus on her overall performance.
