"Expectations were a bit too high" - Iga Swiatek gets honest about 'tricky' start to partnership with coach Wim Fissette amid WTA Finals

Iga Swiatek talked about her partnership with coach Wim Fissette, whom she welcomed before the 2024 WTA Finals in Riyadh. Świątek is now competing in her second year-end championship since the latter joined her team.

Iga Swiatek has been a dominant force on the WTA Tour, holding the No. 1 ranking for 125 weeks after becoming the youngest woman to complete the Sunshine Double and achieving a 37-match win streak, the longest in the 21st century. During that time, she was under the tutelage of Tomasz Wiktorowski, who also helped her win four Grand Slam titles across two surfaces.

She parted ways with Wiktorowski last year and joined the likes of her first non-Polish coach, Wim Fissette, just ahead of the 2024 WTA Finals. She was already coming fresh off three successful seasons when Fissett took the anchor. Talking about how the initial time with her new coach was tricky, but eventually the blend of knowledge and experience paid off, Swiatek said:

"With Wim, I think the start of our relationship was pretty tricky because he joined my team after my three perfect seasons. So there was kind of no space to go up. Actually, winning Wimbledon was the only thing that I wasn't able to do before. But yeah, usually you change coaches because something was going wrong and you have this boost, but this time it was a bit different. So I wanted to win because I knew that he's a super experienced coach, he has such knowledge, and I just felt like his knowledge plus my experience and the way I play should give us something big," she told The National during her Riyadh campaign. “So the first part of the season, the expectations were a bit too high. I should have just focused on playing and that's it," the Pole added.

She defeated Madison Keys but fell to Elena Rybakina in the second stage and will next go up against Amanda Anisimova.

Wim Fissette once revealed Iga Swiatek's way of accepting his coaching approach

Iga Swiatek and her coach at the WTA Finals 2025 - Previews - Source: Getty

Iga Swiatek had a successful season, winning her first Wimbledon title and extending her Major tally to six. In the following Grand Slam at Flushing Meadows, she reached the quarterfinals but fell to American Amanda Anisimova in straight sets. Shortly after her New York campaign, the 24-year-old’s coach spoke about some of her key attributes, highlighting her adaptability and her tendency to be critical of everything that comes her way on the court.

"She's a bit stubborn, but it's natural that if you're succeeding in a certain way, you want to stick to it. It is then not easy to convince yourself to do certain things a little differently. Sometimes you have to suffer several failures," he said to Rzeczpospolita. "During training, Iga is not a person who immediately accepts everything I say, but rather think about it, sometimes talk to other team members and finally try. And when he believes in something and feels that it works, he inserts it into his system quite quickly."

Iga Swiatek reached the semifinals of the Australian Open this year, but fell to eventual champion Madison Keys.

Edited by Agnijeeta Majumder