G’day From Wimbledon.
World No. 1 Iga Swiatek is out of Wimbledon in the first week. She lost 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 on Court No. 1 to Yulia Putintseva yesterday. You could also make a strong argument that the person who beat her was primarily herself.
HERE is the analysis story I wrote 12 months ago when Elina Svitolina defeated Swiatek 7-5, 6-7(5), 6-2. In that match, Swiatek committed 57 forehand errors and lost. In yesterday’s match, Swiatek committed 46 errors and lost again. The common theme was the forehand spraying, especially when she was on defense.
Swiatek vs. Putintseva
Forehand Performance
- Putintseva = 11 winners / 16 errors = -5
- Swiatek = 19 winners / 46 errors = -27
Backhand Performance
- Putintseva = 6 winners / 21 errors = -15
- Swiatek = 8 winners / 20 errors = -12
Swiatek’s forehand metrics were vastly inferior to Putintseva’s. Swiatek was actually slightly superior off the backhand wing, but the forehand errors sank the ship.
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Twelve months ago, when Switek bombed out of the tournament against Svitolina, all fingers pointed to a breakdown of the forehand, especially in defensive situations. She can block her way out of trouble just fine on the backhand wing. The forehand side is a different animal altogether.
Just like last year, the determining factor of whether Swiatek’s forehand goes in the court or misses is the time she has to prepare. The first game of yesterday’s match was a prime example.
Set 1. Game 1.
- Swiatek hit a forehand winner on the first point because she made a good first serve at the body, and the ball came back slow. It was a piece of cake.
- Swiatek led 40-0 in the opening game and served to Putintseva’s forehand. The return came back quickly right down the middle of the court, and she had very little time to react. The return landed deep, and the forehand went straight into the net. Swiatek didn’t play as a defensive forehand. She took a big cut at the ball, which is so much tougher to do against a deep, fast ball.
The forehand problems for Swiatek are multifaceted.
- Her extreme Western grip is great for adding spin to the ball, but it’s not great for blocking your way out of trouble.
- Swiatek doesn’t seem to possess a true “blocking” forehand. It seems like she has only one gear on that side and can’t modify or adapt the swing to the toughness of the shot.
- There is so much wrist and whip in her forehand. Not ideal for defense.
In the second game of the match, Swiatek committed SIX forehand return and forehand groundstroke errors. None of them were “good” errors. They all sprayed. The swing was too big and too fast driving up the back of the ball. Just watching this one game alone, you got the feeling that she was in big trouble in this match.
Swiatek’s forehand problems got me thinking about other players in the third round. Did they also have a defensive forehand problem as well? The answer surprised me. The table below outlines all third-round matches in the women’s draw. The match winner is mentioned first, and the match loser is second. The first column shows how many forehand errors were in the match, then how many sets were played, and then an average of forehand errors per set.
Wimbledon 2024: Women’s 3rd Round Forehand Errors By Match Losers
The table above identifies that Swiatek averaged 15.3 forehand errors per set. That was the fourth-highest total, which is remarkable in itself. It’s jaw-dropping to see that Liudmila Samsonova committed 38 forehand errors against Anna Kalinskaya in two sets. That’s slightly more than half of all points (71) that Kalinskaya won. The forehand seems to be a real problem for players in about half of these matches.
In search of more understanding, the table below shows the number of forehand errors made by the match winners in all these third-round matches.
Wimbledon 2024: Women’s 3rd Round Forehand Errors By Match Winners
Match winners averaged 9.2 forehand errors per set in the women’s third round this year. Match losers averaged 12.3 forehand errors per set. That’s a difference of just over three points a set. This one statistic alone is enough to identify what heavily contributed to victory and defeat in these matches.
The last table (below) highlights forehand errors from the match winner vs. the match loser for all third-round matches.
Wimbledon 2024: Women’s 3rd Round Forehand Errors Match Winner vs. Loser
As the table above idneitifes, Putintseva and Swiatek had the biggest difference in forehand performance in the women’s third round. Nobody committed more forehand errors in the third round than Swiatek, with 46. There was a massive 30-point difference between Swiatek’s forehand errors and her opponents.
Ground zero right there.
SUMMARY
This is a big problem for Swiatek’s career – not only just at Wimbledon. Opponents are always studying each other. Coaches are always talking to each other. When you look at Swiatek’s bad Wimbledon losses from this year and last year, a trend obviously surfaces. And when you watch the forehand errors on video, they are not good. Swiatek looks extremely uncomfortable under pressure on her forehand.
Opponents will try to copy and paste these tactics on hard courts and clay courts. There is no reason why rushing her forehand won’t work there as well.
This is how I like to evaluate a stroke, such as Swiatek’s forehand. I like to use the analogy of a chain. Her forehand is either a strong link, a weak link, or a broken link. Her forehand at Wimbledon the last two years clearly falls into the broken category. When you have any part of your game fall into the broken category, you need to stop regular practice and focus all your energy on removing it initially from broken to weak. And then over time to strong.
Before Iga arrives in North America for the hard court season in a couple of weeks, she needs to fix her forehand. I just watched all 46 of Swiatek’s errors on the tagged replay at my Wimbledon media desk. Here’s precisely what needs fixing.
1: Recovering Too Soon
It looks like she is panicking when she hits a forehand return. She is already recovering to the middle of the court as she is hitting the ball. It is affecting her point of contact, dragging it to the edge of the racket, which typically drags the ball into the net. She needs to stay on the shot and trust it. Hit it well, and you won’t have to run anywhere. The better you hit it, the more the opponent will have it hit it straight back.
2: Too Much Up The Back Of The Ball
Swiatek’s extreme forehand grip is great for spin. She does not have to severely brush up the back of the ball as well to get it over the net. This results in shanks and poor contact. The grip gets the spin. Hitting through the ball gets it over the net and deep in the court. Too many errors see her racket going straight up in the air and getting very little of the ball.
3: Balance and Body Position
When the ball comes hard and deep, Swiatek tends to squat down as low as possible to the ground as a counter. The problem is that her feet are too close together, and balance is difficult. She does not need to go into an extreme squat position. The goal is to separate the feet as much as possible to get lower behind the ball. A wider base is the answer.
4: Racket Head Speed
Swiatek tends to swat at the ball on defense with extremely fast racket head speed. It’s almost impossible to hit the ball clean like that. She has got to get more through it rather than up the back so violently and slow the racket head down to control the shot more.
5: Serve +1 Forehand Defense
Swiatek looked all at sea several times when trying to hit a defensive forehand right after a serve. She needs to learn to block this ball and keep the swing short. She missed a Serve +1 forehand serving 0-40 in the first game of the third set. She played too much off the back foot and swung too much at a tough ball. It didn’t have a chance to go over the net.
6: Too Robotic
It feels like Swiatek has only one speed on her forehand – as fast as she can swing. Again, that’s totally fine when she has time to wind up and get her hands and feet prepared. But it’s not when the ball the ball is coming hard and deep with spin. That requires DIFFERENT forehand technique. That requires slowing the racket down, reducing the size of the backswing and follow-through, and essentially blocking your way out of trouble. I get a very robotic feeling watching Swiatek struggle on forehand defense because the swing looks exactly the same as forehand offense.
7: The Moment
With Putintseva serving for the match at 5-2 in the third set, Swiatek dumped a forehand return into the net on the first point. The swing was big and she was jumping and rushing to recover when hitting it. The only thing that mattered was staying on the shot and blocking the return. She did hit a forehand winner to get to 15-15, but it was off a horrible drop shot, and she had all day to hit it. At 15-15, the forehand return missed the court again. In fact, it completely missed the strings came and off the top of the frame, and went over Putintseva’s head.
Swiatek has only reached the quarter-finals in Wimbledon once (2023) in her career. Once she develops a defensive forehand, the prospect of going deeper will become a realty.