‘Everything is fine’: Swiatek quashes performance fears ahead of Australian Open

4 hours ago 4

Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek are the two top-ranked women’s players heading into the 2026 Australian Open, but their Sunday night matches couldn’t have been further apart.

While Sabalenka’s ended with a trophy lift and 22nd career title with victory in Brisbane, Swiatek’s ended in tears as the world no.2 suffered another defeat ahead of the first grand slam of the year.

World no.2 Iga Swiatek in her match against Belinda Bencic on Sunday night.

The shining light for Swiatek was that Poland went on to win the United Cup final, despite her three-set capitulation to Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic, and she eventually lifted a trophy after the nation was the tournament bridesmaids in 2024 and 2025.

But a racquet toss as she entered the team box after her match just about summed up Swiatek’s results ahead of the Australian Open, and she now heads to Melbourne Park with back-to-back losses after also falling to Coco Gauff on Saturday night.

But by time Swiatek and team Poland hit the press conference room just shy of 1am, anger and frustration had been replaced with elation, and the world no.2 was quick to quash concerns about her health after she was left in tears on court twice this week.

“Everything is fine, just super sore. I guess, first tournament of the year it costs everybody a bit differently than during the season, but I had a similar experience last year,” she said.

“I’ll just get good recovery, a couple of days off. Also, I know these team events, I love them, but they really take a lot of energy from you, so I still need to figure out how to balance that maybe in the future.

“Because I get so excited on the bench that it’s almost like playing a match. It’s all good, I for sure, physically wasn’t in the second set the best version of myself and I definitely used it to push me, but for sure I’ll try to get that covered before Australian Open.”

Iga Swiatek celebrates Poland’s United Cup victory.

Swiatek lost seven games in a row in the middle of her match against Bencic, which included losing the second set without getting a game on the board in an uncharacteristic performance for the Pole.

However, Swiatek didn’t appear concerned at that statistic or her performance as she prepares to head to Melbourne.

“I’m still here, nothing crazy happened. I think, it was a mix of me losing the intensity and I wasn’t feeling so sharp with movement and with my legs, I wasn’t so precise any more physically I would say,” she said.

“Belinda is a really aggressive player when she gets in the zone, she can really hit amazing shots and I missed a lot, so I think it was a mix of that.”

Swiatek said the team would go away and analyse the losses as she chases the career grand slam in Melbourne this week.

“For sure, these are good matches to analyse against really top players, especially Belinda likes to play on fast surfaces, so it was a good test, and we’re going to work now to improve some elements that didn’t work this week,” she said.

“Still not a lot of time for that if I also want to have some recovery days, but this is how tennis is, you’ve got to go with the flow.”

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.