Iga Swiatek bowed out of Roland Garros on Sunday following a loss to Marta Kostyuk in the fourth round.
Kostyuk, who improved her winning streak on clay in 2026 to 16, defeated Swiatek in straight sets, 7-5, 6-1.
The Pole’s loss confirmed her worst finish at the French Open since 2019, having made at least the quarterfinals each year since 2020.
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Swiatek came into the bout having never lost to Kostyuk at a WTA Tour-level event, leading the head-to-head 3-0.
But this time around, the four-time Roland Garros champion said tenseness got the better of her.
Iga Swiatek reacts to her fourth-round defeat at the French Open
Addressing the loss in her post-match press conference, Swiatek said: “Well, for sure I lost control of the match, and there was no way for me to come back because I felt worse and worse, you know, so this is not like positive, and this is different from losing to Elina in Rome or to Andreeva, I guess, in Stuttgart.
“So yeah, it’s not great. I know that I lost because I was tense and my body couldn’t really do the proper things, you know, but it’s not the first time as well.
“I just need to work on it and honestly, like for me, maybe the toughest loss is when you had the match in your hands, but you made stupid decisions and you let it go and your opponent suddenly comes back.
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“Or it’s also bad when your tennis is just terrible and you know that you’re worse than the players that you play with.
“But I feel like for sure I lost today because Marta used the opportunity and I was super tense and I feel like I can work on that at least and there’s a reason and there’s maybe a solution and maybe it’s not gonna take one week or one month, maybe it’s gonna take even a season or something, but I need to believe that I can work through this and not be thrown off so quickly.”
Asked why she felt so tense, Swiatek replied: “I mean, we’re not in a therapy session, so I’m gonna keep it simple, but obviously there could be many reasons, but I’d rather work on it on my own.
“It is harder a bit to handle stress for me in the last year, especially I feel like the peak was in the US this year.
“So I feel like today I felt off and I did mistakes that I didn’t want to do and I wanted to play safe, but the ball flew everywhere and suddenly these feelings came back and I tried to work on it with my dialogue inside, but it was tough today. It all kind of went drastically down and I played worse and worse.”
Iga Swiatek gives update on her new service motion
Swiatek began working with Rafael Nadal’s former coach, Francisco Roig, in April, and one of the first big changes the Spaniard has made to her game is a brand new service motion.
“I still don’t put the elbow how I exactly want to,” said Swiatek of the new-look motion. “So for sure technically when we have more time to practice, I want to repeat, repeat, repeat a hundred times to get it better.
“But for sure, I think the serve is the most complicated shot, so if something will fall apart a bit under pressure, I feel like it’s serve and then movement and then just miss-hitting everything, so yeah, I guess that happened today.”
Swiatek will now set her sights on the grass-court season, where she will be defending the Wimbledon title for the first time in her career.
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