Iga Swiatek made some important changes to her game to win the Wimbledon title.
Before 2025, the Pole had never progressed beyond the quarterfinals at the All-England Club.
She also entered the tournament without any title wins for the past year, but perhaps that sense of nothing to lose is what Iga Swiatek needed heading into her most difficult Grand Slam.
Many of her biggest rivals fell early during Wimbledon, but Swiatek eased through the field, and won her last three sets of the tournament without losing a game to win her first grass court title.
Photo by Robert Prange/Getty ImagesIga Swiatek says she was ‘surprised’ by the speed of her serve at Wimbledon this year
Swiatek possesses heavy and consistent groundstrokes, and she has arguably the best movement in the game.
But one area that she was keen to improve is her serve in a bid to make it more penetrative and win more free points as a result.
Swiatek has worked on her serve with coach Wim Fisette, but she was surprised with how she served at Wimbledon.
During Swiatek’s third round win over Danielle Collins at SW19, her average first serve speed was 180km/h, which was faster than Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina and Madison Keys at the same stage of the tournament.
During a guest appearance on Andy Roddick’s ‘Served’ podcast, Swiatek opened up on how her improved serve has made her feel.
“Honestly when I looked at the stats after the tournament I told my condition coach was the speed check broken because I never served that fast!,” she said.
“I was serving faster than all the big servers that we have on the WTA Tour. I was surprised, I don’t know if I am going to be able to do that next tournament.
“I will try because I loved it and I got so many free points and the girls couldn’t really return these serves as well as before, so it was super convenient.
“I think that was the one of the keys and I got to say for the first year I wasn’t trying to copy my clay court game, with still trying to spin the ball on the forehand and move similarly.
“I just knew that I needed to use my intuition a bit more, I think I played more flat from the beginning of the grass court season and more aggressive from the first shot.”
Photo by Jason Heidrich/Icon Sportswire via Getty ImagesIga Swiatek says she started to feel her serve improve at the Australian Open
While it is still a work in progress, Swiatek has been working hard on her serve for the entire year.
While she saw the fruits of her labour to its fullest extent at Wimbledon, Swiatek said she first felt the improvements in her serve at January’s Australian Open, where she reached the semifinals.
“Basically I think I needed someone to force me to do that to give me a little bit of confidence to be able to serve all directions with good speed and precision,” she said.
“I felt that already in Australia that this is going better. I had some tournaments where I didn’t feel it that well, but I guess in every process you are going to have ups and downs until you get to the point where it comes more naturally.
“At Wimbledon I think also with the balls that are sticking to the strings, the contact point is a bit longer, because they are heavier a bit. I felt like I could serve really well and I was really going for it.”