MORE: TNT ROLAND GARROS TV SCHEDULE<\/a><\/p>\nIn a Zoom call with the media today to promote TNT\u2019s Roland Garros TV coverage starting on Sunday, May 24th at 5 a.m. Eastern time on TNT, McEnroe said Swiatek has become so committed to playing first-strike offense, she\u2019s lost some of her defensive prowess extending points on dirt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The results, McEnroe suggests, have been more unforced errors and more clay-court defeats for the woman, who swept Madrid, Rome and Paris championships two years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor her, in her mind, it appears if she\u2019s playing defense like they\u2019ve got her in a way mentally,\u201d John McEnroe told the media on TNT\u2019s Zoom call. \u201cShe\u2019s got to understand that at times that\u2019s actually [not bad to play defense].<\/p>\n
\u201cIga idolizes Rafa. Well Rafa\u00a0 played equally well offensively and defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mac Zone\u00a0\u2014 TNT Sports\u2019 signature fan-first tennis experience airing daily during Roland Garro\u2019s first six days across Bleacher Report\u2019s YouTube channel, truTV and HBO Max \u2014 with the McEnroe brothers covering both the days events and pop culture crossovers to the tournament.<\/p>\n
The third-ranked Swiatek jettisoned coach Wim Fissette after her Miami Open opening-round loss and hired Rafa Nadal\u2019s ex-coach Francisco Roig, whose partnership with Emma Raducanu ended earlier this year, as her new coach.<\/p>\n
King of Clay Nadal, who attended some of Swiatek\u2019s training sessions at the Rafa Nadal Academy on Mallorca last month, should serve as Swiatek\u2019s stylistic role model, John McEnroe said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen she\u2019s on, she\u2019s unbelievable offensively,\u201d John McEnroe said. \u201cBut for someone as great as she is on clay, she doesn\u2019t play defense as well as you might expect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patrick McEnroe, who will co-host the MacZone on TNT alongside his brother, said Swiatek can still clean up on clay when she plays with the lead.<\/p>\n
The Wimbledon winner has grown too predictable trying to strong-arm opponents and can self-sabotage by hitting her way into problems, says Patrick McEnroe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first couple of years I watched her on clay, I was thinking: \u2018Man, she\u2019s gonna dominant on this surface for a long time,\u2019 \u201c Patrick McEnroe said. \u201cAs a front-runner, she can still dominate.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, what\u2019s hurt her a lot, as a match player is she kind of only plays like one style. [She plays] like super aggressive and I compare her a little bit to Agassi. When Agassi learned how to control the tempo a little better\u2014he obviously got fitter, he got more experienced\u2014he didn\u2019t always try to just hit through you.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAgassi was the greatest ball striker I ever saw off both wings until this new modern era of players.\u201d<\/p>\n
In contrast, Swiatek hasn\u2019t shown the control to pull back a bit when the ball is flying, create some shorter angles and show patient point construction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Iga, if it\u2019s not working, she\u2019ll just hit her way into trouble,\u201d Patrick McEnroe said. \u201cObviously, she\u2019s had some off-court issues with her team and she looks, at times, like she\u2019d rather be anywhere else than on the tennis court. That\u2019s tough to deal with when you\u2019re someone of her stature with multiple majors in her back pocket.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s trying to become an all-timer, which I think physically she has the possibility of doing. We\u2019ve seen signs this clay-court season she\u2019s starting to get it back, but I feel she doesn\u2019t change her tempo enough like mid-match sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Richard Pagliaro | Wednesday, May 20, 2026Photo credit: Antoine Couvercelle\/ROLEX A steel solution to Iga Swiatek\u2019s clay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-682623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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