Iga Swiatek once admitted to listening to heavy metal before matches. Led Zeppelin was her band of choice, cranked up in the locker room before she walked out to dismantle whoever was waiting on the other side of the net. It is, when you think about it, a surprisingly fitting detail. Because for a long stretch of her career, watching Swiatek play tennis felt a lot like standing too close to a speaker: loud, relentless, and slightly overwhelming.<\/p>\n
The comparison got a little more complicated recently in Doha, where Maria Sakkari came back from a set down to beat her, ending one of the more quietly staggering statistical streaks in women’s tennis. Swiatek had been 109-0 in WTA 1000 matches after winning the first set. She is now 109-1. So what exactly made Swiatek’s game the heavy metal of tennis? A few things come to mind.<\/p>\n
For a period that felt almost surreal to watch in real time, Swiatek did not just beat players. She processed them. The term “Iga’s Bakery” became a genuine cultural reference point among tennis fans because bagels, sets won 6-0, were being served frequently. She topped the WTA’s list for most 6-0 sets in a season more than once and, at her peak, was threatening some of the most extreme dominance numbers the tour had ever recorded.<\/p>\n
She is one of a small handful of women to have ever beaten an opponent 6-0 6-0, and she did it to Karolina Pliskova in a final, which is about as emphatic a statement as the sport allows. She also handed Amanda Anisimova a 6-0 6-0 defeat in the Wimbledon final, which nobody will ever forget. It wasn\u2019t by chance either.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, by current bagel rankings, Swiatek sits fourteenth this season with two. The leader right now is Iva Jovic with four, which is a name worth paying attention to going forward.<\/p>\n
Swiatek presents a particular kind of paradox off the court. In interviews, she is measured, thoughtful and generally quite reserved. She seems like the kind of player who seems almost allergic to the idea of making headlines for anything other than results. And yet on the court, she has accumulated a catalogue of moments that have raised eyebrows among her peers, even if most of them aired those opinions off the record.<\/p>\n
There have been instances of gamesmanship, of disrupting rhythm at big moments. She is not Ostapenko, though. She is not looking to start fires. But she is absolutely not above bending the psychological edges of a match in her favour, and for a player with her reputation for clinical, almost robotic dominance, that streak of competitive ruthlessness is actually one of the more interesting things about her. It is, in its own way, pretty metal.<\/p>\n
Being metal, at its core, is about strength, toughness and a refusal to be pushed around. The rebellious dimension, the leather jacket and the raised fist is not really Swiatek’s register. She keeps her head down, does her work, and lets tennis do the talking. But strength and toughness, she has in abundance.<\/p>\n
Since Ashleigh Barty retired, no player has come close to matching what Swiatek has sustained. Others have had their moments, slams, and weeks at number one, but Swiatek has a habit of absorbing those challenges and reasserting herself before anyone has quite finished writing the transition narrative. She held the undisputed number one ranking for long enough that it started to feel permanent, and even now, when she looks more vulnerable than she once did, she remains a player that nobody on the tour genuinely wants to face.<\/p>\n
The 109-0 record after winning a first set in WTA 1000 matches was a number almost too clean to be real. Not losing back-to-back matches since 2021 is another one of those lines that sounds made up until you check. And somewhere underneath all of it, in the headphones before the first ball is struck, Led Zeppelin is playing.<\/p>\n
Heavy metal Iga Swiatek. Rock on.<\/p>\n
Main photo credit:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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