Who is Iga Swiatek?
Born 31st of May 2001 in Warsaw, Poland, Iga was destined for great things as her dad was already an Olympic Rower. Her father always wanted Iga and her sisters to become professional athletes. She actually started out as a swimmer but struggled, so switched to Tennis.
What is her Tennis story?
We have not heard a lot about Swiatek until her monumental arrival on the Tennis scene at the French Open, but she has been consistently moving up. Between 2016 and 2018 she reached and won all 7 ITF finals. In 2018 she was the French Open girls doubles champion, as well as the 2018 Wimbledon singles girls champion. In 2019 her WTA career started and she was already in the top 100 at age 17 and quickly after in the top 50 at 18 years old.
In the US Open of 2019 she lost to Naomi Osaka and ending up taking the end of the year off, recovering from an injury. She came back to the WTA tour at the Australia Open in 2020 and reached the 4th round. She entered the French Open as the number 53 player in the world and ended up winning it!
Some Iga stats after winning the French
- She is the first Polish player to ever win a Grand Slam.
- She is the lowest ranked WTA player EVER to win the French Open
- She is the youngest female player to win the title since Monica Seles ( 1992).
- She did not lose one set on her way to winning the title.
- Swiatek is now ranked 17 in the world.
What’s next?
It seems that the world is her Oyster and considering her ability to thrive under pressure in her first Grand Slam tournament, it would seem to indicate that it is a place she will find herself in many more times. She is a welcome addition to the game with her all court game, no nonsense style Tennis, and her cool calm and quirky character.
There is no doubt we will see more from her.. For now I will leave you with Iga’s latest twitter post where she met her idol and couldn’t help but take a sneaky photo of the moment.
