Which leads to a new question for Iga this spring: Can she bring her 2025 attitude about grass to her 2026 matches on clay? Can she get herself to feel less pressure on a surface where she was once expected to win every time she played?
On court, the verdict is still out. Swiatek lost to Mirra Andreeva in Stuttgart, was ill in Madrid, and was topsy-turvy against McNally.
Off court, though, she may have hired the right person to help her with her particular problem. Francisco Roig, her new coach, was also Nadal’s coach.
I’ve always thought that Nadal’s long-running clay dominance was, in at least one way, underrated. You might think that, once he had established himself as the best-ever on dirt, it would be easier to keep winning win on it. And it’s true, Rafa’s opponents couldn’t have been all that confident when they stepped onto a clay court with him. But as Swiatek has found out, winning matches you’re expected to win, over and over and over, year after year after year, can be the toughest task of all. Every time Nadal played on clay, he knew that, if he lost, it would be headline news. Yet he never let that pressure get to him.
