Iga Swiatek has been told she faces a slide down the rankings as “it’s unlikely she’ll be able to get out of this slump” by tennis coach Dmitry Tursunov.
After dominating women’s tennis between 2022 and 2024, Swiatek has struggled for consistency the past two years as she failed to reach a final between July 2024 and May 2025, resulting in her losing the world No 1 ranking to Aryna Sabalenka.
The Pole then finished runner-up at the Bad Homburg Open and looked to have turned the corner when she won her maiden Wimbledon title and went on to lift the Cincinnati Open and Korea Open trophies.
But she has failed to carry that form over to 2026 as, although she was part of the Poland team that won the United Cup, she lost her singles matches against Coco Gauff in the semi-finals and Belinda Bencic in the final.
Since then, she has suffered three consecutive quarter-final exits, losing to Elena Rybakina at the Australian Open, Maria Sakkari at the Qatar Open and Elina Svitolina at the recent Indian Wells Open.
Her defeat to Svitolina has resulted in her dropping down to No 3 in the WTA Rankings with Rybakina reaching No 2 for the first time in her career.
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Tursunov – who has coached a host of WTA stars, including reigning No 1 Aryna Sabalenka, Belinda Bencic, Anett Kontaveit and Elena Vesnina, while he also had a short stint with 2021 US Open winner Emma Raducanu in 2022 – doesn’t think the 24-year-old will turn things around.
“It’s unlikely she’ll be able to get out of this slump. We’re not even talking about returning to the top of the WTA Rankings. We’re talking about staying in the top five…” he wrote on Telegram.
He added: “How many more warning signals does Iga – who is currently 10th in the ranking [WTA Race To Riyadh] need? I don’t ever remember her being under such pressure in her career or during her clay court competitions.”
Sabalenka and Rybakina appear to be the new Big Two in women’s tennis and Swiatek could slip to No 4 in the WTA Rankings if she fails to reach the latter stages of the Miami Open and Coco Gauff reaches the semi-finals or final.
The former world No 1 won the WTA 1000 tournament in Florida during her dominant 2022 season, but she lost in the quarter-final against rising star Alex Eala last year.
There is a bit of good news for Swiatek ahead of the clay-court season as her failure to win any titles on the red dirt last year means she doesn’t have as many points to defend as in previous seasons.