Mats Wilander has urged Iga Swiatek to make a certain change in her game if she wants to win Wimbledon.
The Pole has illustrated how dominant she is on the clay and how dangerous she is on hard courts, but she has struggled to replicate that form on grass.
After Swiatek won a fourth French Open crown, she lost her Wimbledon third round match to the unseeded Yulia Putinseva.
She never looked comfortable throughout her latest campaign at the All-England Club and her wait to lift the Venus Rosewater dish goes on.
What does Mats Wilander want Iga Swiatek to do similar to Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon?
Swiatek has begun her career in similar fashion to Rafael Nadal as far as playing on clay and grass is concerned.
It took the Spaniard three attempts before he was able to defeat Roger Federer to win the Wimbledon title in 2008.
He needed time to figure out how to translate his elite clay court game onto grass, and Wilander believes Swiatek must do the same if she is to succeed at SW19.
“I am 100% confident that she will master it. I think Iga feels when she gets to the grass, grass she has to play a different game than she is used to,” he told the Roland Garros Courtside conversations podcast.
“It becomes sort of an out of body experience and because it’s on grass and I have to play aggressive, no. Look at Rafael Nadal.
“If anyone said that after Rafa won the French in 2005 that he was gonna push Roger Federer to five sets in 2007 and win in 2008 I would have said that person is crazy there’s no chance. But what does he do when he goes to Wimbledon? He tries to play the same way.”
What are Rafael Nadal and Iga Swiatek’s best results at Wimbledon?
Once he mastered the grass, Nadal went on to win Wimbledon in 2008 and 2010 and made the final on three other occasions. In his most recent appearances at the tournament, he made the semifinals in 2018, 2019 and 2022.
Swiatek meanwhile, has yet to go beyond the quarter-finals and reached the last eight for the first time in 2023 before losing to Elina Svitolina.
When analysing the World number one’s game in more detail, Wilander thinks the forehand is the area that is most cause for concern.
“I think Iga has gone away from who she really is and what she does, and it starts with that forehand,” the Swede added. “The forehand for her on grass needs to be hit with the same amount of spin that she does on a clay court. She needs to play with height over the net on a grass court.
“She’s trying to play logical tennis on grass and it doesn’t work to be logical playing professional tennis winning Wimbledon, the decisions come from your heart, it’s a feeling.”
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