Iga Swiatek’s Net Behavior

Today’s post will be somewhat short as there is not a lot going on in the season right now. In the San Diego Open final played on Sunday, Iga Swiatek employed a tactic against her opponent (Donna Vekic) which later warranted an apology from the Pole. Swiatek, having run out of options after being left wide open at the net, flailed her arms and bounced around in an attempt to distract Vekic from making her shot. 

This is not the first time fans have seen this maneuver from Swiatek. Other examples of times she attempted to distract her opponents are the Iga dance against Lauren Davis in her US Open title run (Davis was troubling her for quite a while) and some loud stomping against Ash Barty when the Aussie was about to hit an easy putaway. 

This kind of behavior deserves some penalty. Swiatek needs to face defaulted points for intentionally distracting her opponent(s). It’s no secret that I am a big fan of Iga Swiatek – see my other posts for proof – but this behavior is not how the best player in the world should act. Swiatek’s tenacity, desire to win, and (arguably greater) hatred of losing are all admirable qualities; this manifestation of those traits is not. Champions do not need to flail around distractingly to succeed, which is something Swiatek knows because she has won many a title this year without doing so. The rest of the tour is already struggling to deal with the Pole when she doesn’t use this weird play – is it really necessary? 

Swiatek has since apologized to Vekic publicly for waving her arms at the net – now it’s time to put an end to a silly and indecent tactic.

Unrelated: Zheng and Pegula are going to be the first players to a.) crack the Swiatek code and b.) win titles consistently. Pegula has lost to Swiatek too many times this year to not be thinking constantly of ways to win, and Zheng has troubled her in both of their matches and is young with a big, constantly improving game. Gauff will catch up after fine-tuning her serve and forehand.