After Iga Swiatek’s demolition of Amanda Anisimova in the Wimbledon final on Saturday, the first person she thanked in her victory speech was her coach, Wim Fissette. The Belgian joined Swiatek’s team at the end of last year, just before it was revealed that the Pole had tested positive for a banned drug. She finished a one-month ban in December, having proved that the failed test was the result of a contaminated sleeping pill.
The timing was far from ideal and shocked Swiatek, as well as the tennis world. Fissette, one of the sport’s leading coaches who won six grand-slam titles with Kim Clijsters, Angelique Kerber and Naomi Osaka, had some ideas he wanted to add to Swiatek’s game but, as often happens, it took time to learn how best to get his message across.
In the clay-court season, where previously she had dominated, Swiatek suffered her first real dip in form since she became world No 1 in April 2022. Visibly stressed, she lost early in Stuttgart, was humbled by Coco Gauff in the Madrid semi-finals and then lost in round two in Rome. But at Roland Garros, where she had won the title in four of the past five years, she looked a little more like her normal self. Though she lost in the semi-finals to Aryna Sabalenka, her calmness was back.
“Those two tournaments [Madrid and Rome] were definitely difficult for her,” Fissette told a small group of reporters on the player lawn, putting down a glass of champagne as he and the team celebrated Swiatek’s first Wimbledon title and sixth slam title overall. “[It was] probably just very high expectations and then it was just getting too much. But even in Paris she was already much calmer. I felt after Rome there was a good switch and more focus on, let’s say, developing as a player. We tried to improve a few things and she was really focusing on that more than about just winning, winning, winning. That helped her also to stay a bit more calm.”
In her last-16 win over Elena Rybakina at the French Open, Swiatek was trailing by a set and 2-0, seemingly on her way to another bruising defeat, when Fissette told her to stand a little deeper to return serve. It worked, the 24-year-old storming back for a victory which did a lot to restore her confidence. “I advised her many times, but that’s one she listened [to],” Fisette said, smiling.
After the turnaround in Paris, Fissette saw an opportunity to suggest some changes to Swiatek’s footwork on grass, a surface that she had never fully trusted herself on, even if she did win the junior title here in 2019. “On the grass, there was an opening because she never had success,” he said. “It was not easy to convince her but once she was convinced, she got better every day. She just texted me, actually, from the locker room, to say: ‘Maybe it was not a bad idea, that point.’”
A couple of hours later on Saturday, as she completed more than two hours of media commitments after the final, Swiatek smiled as Fissette’s comments were relayed to her. “The first thing I would change in myself is my stubbornness,” she said. “Sometimes I need a little persuading. Honestly, on grass, it didn’t take him a lot of time, because I thought I have so many things to improve [and] I felt that he has more experience on grass than I did.
“It took us a couple of practices but when I saw what I can do with this different footwork, I completely committed to it and I was 100% ready on every practice to do that. I think after a couple of months, he already [knew] that he needs to sometimes force his ideas for me to actually start doing that because any new thing at first feels weird, and I’m only going to trust it when I’m going to feel that’s it’s actually getting better.”
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Swiatek’s performances during the two weeks here proved not only that she can play on grass but that she is back to her best after a difficult period. She has rarely served as well; her ground strokes were devastating and her movement outstanding.
Swiatek is a superstar in Poland, on a par with Robert Lewandowski, and she is also keeping star company these days, with Courteney Cox in her player box for the final, the pair having connected recently at a sponsor event in Paris. “I didn’t know she was going to come here,” Swiatek said. “We’re in touch, but I’m glad that she didn’t text me, because when I know that someone famous is going to watch me I get stressed.”
There’s nothing like a grand slam victory to restore equilibrium and so Swiatek will now head to the hard-court season in the United States with renewed confidence. “She’s still super-young, just turned 24, to have this success,” Fissette said. “And there’s still a lot of room for improvement. I hope to see a better player next year, same time.”
