As promised, yesterday I went to Bergamo (Berghem, in local dialect, to explain the meaningless joke in the heading) to check out how Iga Swiatek is doing in real life. It was the first edition of this 15k pro circuit event and I have attended only the qualifications matches and the finals. As per qualifications, Iga’s opponents were girls who cannot be considered full-time professionals, but more like very good club players: and the same may apply also to the opponent Iga found in the first round of the main draw (hope that none of those girls will be offended by this judgement!).
Before reaching the finals, the only moment in which Iga struggled was, curiously enough, during the second set of the first round of the qualifications, which she played against Valentina Lia. Swiatek won the first set by 6-0; in the second set Lia improved a bit her game and, by contrast, Iga messed up a lot, hitting out everything she could. Iga still was able to win 7-5, but she faced 3 set points and she managed not to lose the set also thanks to the help of a real real lucky net deviation while down 5-4 and, in the following game, by a blatant mistake by the umpire, who didn’t realise that Iga’s first serve touched the net, whilst Lia basically stopped to play. Such mistake was so evident (and it was not the first) that even Iga’s father was really surprised by it, even if the bad decision turned out to be in Iga’s favour.
From there on it was all downhill for Swiatek, who lost in aggregate nine games in the other five matches she played to reach the finals. It must be said that Iga benefitted of a quite lucky draw, since she faced for the first time a top 500 (whom however she beat 6-1 6-0) in the quarters and faced no “devilish young teen” (also because no others beside her played the event). Truth is that, as often happens, the level of this 15k was basically equivalent to a grade 2 in the juniors, a category of tournaments which Swiatek quitted a long time ago.
The finals, which featured Iga against Martina di Giuseppe, was instead a completely different story: that was a real match, and a good one, which Swiatek managed to win in 3 sets 6-4 3-6 6-3. I did not know di Giuseppe before seeing her in this match and she remains a sort of a mystery to me: she is not a youngster (she is 25) and she ranked 360 before this tournament, which was also her best ranking; so I did not expect to see anything particular from her. I was completely wrong: Martina di Giuseppe was the real surprise to me. She can serve well, she owns a good forehand and a real good sliced backhand, which she alternates to a two-handed flat one. But the real noticeable features of her game are her ability to hit dropshots and her real good net game (I wonder why she does not go to the net more often). As the match started, Martina was immediately able to take a 3-1 lead, hurting Iga with countless dropshots, which were absolute killers. Iga’s game, by contrast, was quite out of focus: maybe she felt a bit of pressure, maybe it took a while to her to adjust to her opponent “vintage” game; for sure Iga was not 100% yesterday, since she had a quite annoying cold and kept blowing her nose throughout all the match. That may have also impacted on her performance, which was characterised by many ups and downs. The first turning point of the match was on 4-2 in favour of di Giuseppe: for the first time Swiatek managed to hold her serve comfortably, and started to find consistency from the base line. Relying on her superior pace, she managed to push backwards di Giuseppe, who started to find more and more troublesome playing her game and her variations: Iga managed to equalise and then to win the set by 6-4. The last point of the first set was a memorable one: Iga was not able to close an easy shot (I think a volley) and di Giuseppe managed to lob her and took the net while Swiatek was running backwards: Iga played a tweener-passing shot leaving Martina with a hard volley to play which she flooded in the net: standing ovation in favour of the young Polish by the Italian public.
The second turning point of the match occurred in the second set, when Swiatek was leading 1-0 and had a break point which could virtually close the match: indeed the flow of the struggle was going her side and she was missing no more. But, surprisingly at this stage, Iga badly hit a really simple shot with open court (again a volley, if I correctly remember) and eventually lost the game. In the following game she made two double faults and committed an unforced; thus, she was broken back. Soon after she was broken again and di Giuseppe took a 4-2 lead, managing to win the second set 6-3, after being capable, her too, of playing play a tweener, which led her to win the point (I will spend a further consideration on this tweener after). In the third set Swiatek took the advantage of an early break, following which both players managed to hold until 4-2: at this stage, there were mistakes (and double faults) on both sides, but also many nice points: overall the game was really pleasant to see and the fight between the two was intense and a high quality one. On 4-2 suddenly there were three breaks in a row, two of which in favour of Swiatek, who deservedly won the set 6-3, and the tournament too.
Some notes on Iga Swiatek’s game. I knew that Swiatek serves hard since in Wimbledon some of her first serves were tracked at 170 kms/h. She confirmed this ability of hers; though I observed she does not always hit her first serve at 100% power, preferring maybe to keep a higher percentage of first serves in. In the finals she didn’t serve well, either the first or the second ball: she had only 46% first serve in, winning 64% of points and for Iga these figures are not great. Plus, she double faulted a lot, 10 times during the match. Nevertheless, in the rest of the tournament she double faulted rarely, 2 or 3 times per match, a figure much lower than those in her matches I followed 6 months ago (through livescores). In this respect I spoke with Iga’s opponent in the first match of the qualifications and she was particularly impressed by Iga second serve’s weight. The most noticeable serve stats were shown in the match Swiatek played against Chantal Skamlova: she hit 75% of first serves in, winning 91.7% of the points. Plus, she won 75% of the points on her second serve: no surprise, then, if Swiatek won the relevant match by 6-1 6-0.
Swiatek’s baseline game is, of course, very good: the most noticeable feature is the power she can generate, especially with her forehand. She does not hit every shot at super speed but she often tries accelerations – sometimes also in dubious situations, but, you know, she is just 15 – both with her forehand, her best shot, but also with her backhand, which in any case is a real consistent shot. She hits her forehand with some spin – not excessive, though- whilst her backhand is fairly flat, so I guess she can be a good hard court player (no surprise she won a 10k on hard courts last year).
Iga has also defensive skills: when attacked with powerful shots she doesn’t retrieve and is often able to return as powerfully, keeping her “defensive” shots real deep: thus, it is difficult for her opponent to take control of the exchange; necessarily one has to find good angles to gain an advantage against Iga. Another nice feature of her game: Iga is real good in dropshots. Most of time she hits one, she wins the point; nevertheless this is a solution which she tries quite seldom up to now, no more than 4 or 5 times per match. I wonder if she could exploit more this solution, since she is indeed capable of playing it.
Two downsides I noticed in her game: when she has to deal with a short and low ball, she can go into troubles and miss her shot, especially with her forehand: maybe this is due to the fact that her grip seems closed – possibly a full western – thus, she may find difficult to lift swiftly a low ball. The above problem can occur when she reaches the ball comfortably, even more if she is in delay.
Plus, Iga is not comfortable when playing at the net: that was evidenced by the fact that often enough she misses quite easy volleys, but it became real clear when she was able to recover a short ball by di Giuseppe (not really a drop shot) and lob her: instead of staying at the net and force di Giuseppe to hit a tweener- passing shot, she went back to the base line: di Giuseppe was able to hit her tweener on the other side of the net, and to recover her position in the court and finally won a point which Iga would have comfortably taken away if she hadn’t retrieved.
Overall, Iga is very strong; plus, she has margins of improvement: she could find more consistency on her serve, which is a great weapon – and I am quite sure she will achieve that – and maybe improve a bit her net play – but I guess that such side of her game will never become outstanding, because I find that volleying is not instinctive to her. From the base line, I consider Iga as one of the best juniors I saw, because she is consistent, aggressive, not too faulty, she can accelerate with ease and variations are in her cords too.
I hope Iga plays the junior Italian open because I find her a real pleasant player to follow, indeed. Anyhow, all the best to Berghem-Iga, and a big “brava” for gaining her well-deserved second Pro title.
Tommy Hemp
