{"id":593187,"date":"2026-04-08T10:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T10:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/593187\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T10:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T10:11:10","slug":"tennis-news-2026-rivals-react-to-iga-swiatek-rafael-nadal-clay-court-connection-madison-keys-jessica-pegula-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/593187\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis news 2026 | Rivals react to Iga Swiatek-Rafael Nadal clay court connection, Madison Keys, Jessica Pegula comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iga Swiatek<\/a> has turned to tennis legend Rafael Nadal<\/a> to help her improve this season, with a clip of the pair on the court frightening her WTA rivals. <\/p>\n

A clip of the two clay-court weapons at the Rafael Nadal Academy was posted on Instagram this week, with the Spanish star assisting Swiatek during training.<\/p>\n

Nadal was not only standing at the back of the court as Swiatek practiced, with the women’s world No.4 hiring his former coach Francisco Roig to join her team.<\/p>\n

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Roig worked with Nadal for just over 17 years before moving to work with British sensation Emma Raducanu. The pair’s partnership only lasted six months.<\/p>\n

Still a prominent figure in the tennis world, Roig is looking to get Swiatek back on track.<\/p>\n

If their union was not enough to frighten those on the WTA tour, a session with the king of the clay just over a month away from the French Open will do it.<\/p>\n

“I saw the clip of them on the clay and I was like ugh, this is bad for everybody … this should be illegal,” world No.5 Jessica Pegula said on The Player’s Box podcast.<\/p>\n

“I know, I was like oh god – the last thing we needed was to have Iga on the clay with Rafa,” fellow US star Madison Keys, a co-host on the podcast, added.<\/p>\n

Watch grand slam tennis and the WTA Tour on Stan Sport<\/a>, ad-free, live and on demand<\/p>\n

Swiatek has made it clear in the past that Nadal, a 22-time grand slam champion, has been her idol since she was a child, like many others on the professional circuit.<\/p>\n

The chance to train with a great of the game is something that Keys and Pegula admitted would be amazing to experience, although their nerves would be high.<\/p>\n

\"Rafael<\/p>\n

Rafael Nadal speaks with Iga Swiatek during a training session.\u00a0Rafa Nadal Academy \/ Instagram<\/p>\n

Desirae Krawczyk, a fellow US tennis star and co-host on the podcast, could not help but play out the scenarios in her head.<\/p>\n

“I would be so nervous hitting in front of him,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I would be so excited but I would just be thinking, ‘oh my god, I can’t miss’.”<\/p>\n

“Within five seconds with me on clay he would be like ‘why are you so close to the baseline?'” Keys added, laughing.<\/p>\n

Swiatek will be at the French Open in May where she will look to go one step further than last season, having being eliminated in the semi-finals by Aryna Sabalenka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iga Swiatek has turned to tennis legend Rafael Nadal to help her improve this season, with a clip…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-593187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}