Iga Swiatek has been “tinkering” with an important feature of her game and Andrea Petkovic believes it is a high-risk approach that could lead to greater things for the world No 1.
Four-time Grand Slam winner Swiatek enjoyed another excellent Middle East swing in February as she successfully defended her Qatar Open title while she also reached the semi-final of the Dubai Tennis Championship.
Those results helped her to extend her lead at the top of the WTA Rankings with Aryna Sabalenka more than 1,000 points adrift in second place.
Despite her success, Swiatek has been trying to improve her game and one area that she focused on recently was her serve.
Speaking on the Tennis Channel Inside-In podcast, former world No 9 Petkovic explained the importance of constantly improving as she highlighted how Swiatek can follow in world No 3 Sinner’s footsteps if things “click” with her serve.
“When I see somebody tinkering with whichever shot it is in their arsenal, it makes me really nervous because I know the feeling you have when you all of a sudden don’t feel a shot and you don’t know where it’s going to go at times,” she said on the
“For, Iga being No 1 in the world for a while now but exchanging that place with Aryna Sabalenka, it’s really great to see and fascinating to watch because she knows she feels the other players breathing down her neck, especially Aryna Sabalenka, so she knows she has to keep evolving and developing her game.
“The one thing that she doesn’t have compared to Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina is that big serve that can get her a lot of free points.
“An example on the ATP Tour, Jannik Sinner did the same thing. It cost him the French Open – he lost in the first or second round in five sets – and everyone was like ‘oh what is happening to Jannik’ but they were tinkering with his serve.
“They [Sinner’s team] were trying the thing where he doesn’t move his right leg up. Then they went back to that and all of a sudden it clicked together and now he seems to be unbeatable.
“For the past few months, he has been the player on the ATP Tour to beat. Hopefully, the same thing will happen for Iga too.
“But it is risky and it is always the question ‘do you go ahead, do you try and do it?’ or do you stick with what you have, especially when you have already won major tournaments.”
