Iga Swiatek has another issue in her game that she needs to address according to Rennae Stubbs.
Swiatek recently split from her coach Wim Fissette after a relatively poor run of form which came to a head at the Miami Open.
The six-time Grand Slam champion joined forces with Francisco Roig ahead of the clay court season, with Swiatek also receiving some advice from Rafael Nadal.
Swiatek’s serve has been an issue for her as of late, but former doubles world number one Stubbs believes there is something else that needs focus within her game.
Rennae Stubbs pinpoints the issue in Iga Swiatek’s game other than her serve
At her first tournament with Roig in her coaching team in Stuttgart, Swiatek was beaten by Mirra Andreeva in the quarterfinals.
When assessing Swiatek’s first tournament on her podcast, Stubbs has noticed a few small differences within her game that Roig has introduced, but she believes that some of the same issues have remained.
Stubbs highlighted the serve as a big issue for Swiatek, calling it ‘too predictable’, but she also claimed that the Pole needs to hit deeper in the court on her ground strokes.
“I didn’t see much of a difference,” said Stubbs. “What I did see a little bit at the beginning, was she was standing quite a long way back, maybe going into the very clay court mentality of playing further back and getting more shape on the forehand. Which is all well and good in one respect, but in the end Iga Swiatek is a clay court, quote unquote, specialist and she has done so well at the French because she also attacks.
“She hits the c*** out of the ball and she moves you and she is relentless, and all of those things. It’s going to be interesting to see how Francisco Roig handles this about her, is he going to make her a bit more of a Spanish clay court player standing further back or is he going to embrace the fact that she is an aggressive clay court player?
“I think the biggest takeaway for me with Iga is the serve, it’s too predictable, Andreeva went after a couple of really big returns of serve. She tends to hit that same big kick serve that doesn’t bounce up like [Elena] Rybakina or [Aryna] Sabalenka’s and gets out of the hitting position, and she’s attackable on the second serve.
“…She has to work on her serve. She is a good 5’10, 5’11 and she is strong, but this serve is not a weapon like it could be. I think she got into trouble with that, because Mirra Andreeva, who is about the same size, has a better serve, period. That is how she got out of a lot of problems, she had a lot of break points where she came out of it a lot better than Iga did.”
Where do you think she will be ranked?
Stubbs later added, “I thought her movement was a little bit different as well, she wasn’t sliding to the forehand as well as I am used to her doing. Look, she still has to be aggressive.
“My biggest thing with Iga is that I feel like her depth of shot is not good enough. I think that’s the one thing that people don’t talk about enough is where are you hitting your ground strokes? She’s hitting them on the service line and I would be arguing with her to get the ball further down the court, get it a foot or two down the baseline.
“Lindsay Davenport was one of the great players at that. Lindsay used to practice trying to hit the ball within two feet of the baseline, every single time, and if she didn’t she would get super mad at herself, even just in the warm-up.
“So I think depth of shot, that pushes her opponents back and when it pushes her opponent back she can step into the court a little more and dictate. I just feel like there’s still a little bit of uncertainty in her game in what she wants to do, how she wants to play and she’s going from someone like Wim Fissette to someone like Francisco Roig, who really just worked with Rafa.
“I mean he worked with Emma Raducanu, but I thought he made her stand back too far and be way too defensive. So, I’m going to give it another week, you can’t really see a massive difference in someone that quickly…I think Rome is a big tell, not necessarily Madrid because it’s at altitude, but Rome is really big.”
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Stubbs stated that she was willing to give Swiatek and Roig’s collaboration more time as it is only in its infancy.
Swiatek is now in Spain for the Madrid Open, the tournament she won in 2024.
Some of the other potential threats to Swiatek in her half of the draw this year include world number one Aryna Sabalenka, Elina Svitolina and Iva Jovic.
Swiatek reached the semifinals of the Madrid Open last year, which would likely be seen as a positive result if she matches it in 2026.
The world number four plays her first match in Madrid on Thursday, April 23, against either qualifier Daria Snigur, who saved four match points to beat Daria Kasatkina in the first round.
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