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Getting ‘bagelled’ in tennis is a humiliation.
To not win a single recreation suggests a mismatch, that one of many gamers is both out of their depth or having a horrible day on court docket.
Bagels — as units that finish 6-0 are recognized, as a result of the zero appears like one — are seen as such a humiliation largely as a result of they’re so uncommon. Twelve per cent of WTA Tour matches in 2023 included a bagel, in line with knowledge from Opta.
In simply 5 years on tour nonetheless, world No 1 Iga Swiatek has shattered this orthodoxy.
Throughout 2023, Swiatek gained a bagel set in 29 per cent of her matches. That’s nearly one in three. Her complete of 23 bagels for the 12 months was 15 greater than the gamers with the second-most on the ladies’s tour — Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, each with eight. Excluding matches Swiatek performed in, the typical for the WTA Tour final 12 months was a bagel set in simply 11.4 per cent of matches, in line with Opta.
For Swiatek’s WTA profession as an entire, a median of 40.6 per cent of her matches have included both a 6-0 set or a 6-1.
Swiatek is ruthless in operating over opponents (Dan Istitene/Getty Photographs)
That’s a bagel or breadstick in near half of her tour matches — you’ll be able to see why the time period “Iga’s Bakery” has entered tennis parlance.
Heading into the looming French Open, the place Swiatek is a three-time champion and winner of the previous two tournaments, she exhibits no indicators of slowing down. In 2024, Swiatek has gained probably the most bagel units (eight) of anybody on the WTA Tour, forward of Gauff (seven) and Aryna Sabalenka (5).
In her final two occasions — successful the title in Madrid and in addition in Rome — Swiatek has dished out three bagel units. And as The Athletic confirmed final month, her variety of bagels per week whereas world No 1 stacks up towards the greats — bettered solely by 18-time Grand Slam champion Chris Evert.
However how does she do it? Utilizing knowledge from Hawk-Eye and chatting with the gamers who should face her every week, together with world No 3 Gauff, world No 4 and Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina, and Grand Slam winners together with Victoria Azarenka and Marketa Vondrousova, listed below are the staple elements at Iga’s Bakery.
GO DEEPER
Iga Swiatek’s 100 weeks as world No 1: The streak, the slams, the bagels
To often win bagel units, it’s important to be strong in all areas, notably in returning properly sufficient that each recreation is about who’s the higher tennis participant, somewhat than the higher server.
Swiatek is a grasp of this, and that’s why she is so good at operating away with units.
“She doesn’t have any holes in her recreation,” says world No 11 Daria Kasatkina, who has misplaced in straight units the final 5 occasions she’s performed Swiatek. These embrace a 6-3, 6-0 defeat in Doha, Qatar two years in the past.
“In tennis usually, that’s essential. She returns very properly, and although typically she will have some troubles on serve, typically she’s very steady in all features. She will change from defence to assault in a short time. So for me, that is certainly one of her weapons. And mentally, she may be very robust.”
Swiatek has 21 titles at 22, together with 4 Grand Slams (Michael Owens/Getty Photographs)
Vondrousova, the world No 6 and reigning Wimbledon champion, has performed Swiatek thrice and is but to win a set, struggling a bagel and two breadsticks. “If she’s on hearth, there’s not a lot you are able to do. She doesn’t have a worse facet to attempt to hit,” Vondrousova says.
Having amassed over 100 weeks as world No 1, Swiatek’s base degree is clearly excellent — even in units she doesn’t win to like or one. However is there something she does particularly in another way when operating away with it?
Utilizing Hawk-Eye knowledge, The Athletic has sorted Swiatek’s units performed into bagels and people who had been 6-2 or nearer.
In her bagel units, Swiatek produces extra unreturned serves: 31 per cent in comparison with 27 per cent. Her service video games get faster by 17 seconds on common consequently; her return video games, in the meantime, velocity up by 16 seconds.
This helps what the eye-test says. Watching Swiatek put one other bagel within the oven, it feels that issues are spiralling shortly uncontrolled for her opponent. That is demonstrated by the typical size of return video games, that are three minutes and 18 seconds if it’s recreation certainly one of a bagel set; 4 minutes and 48 seconds if it’s the third recreation; and three minutes and three seconds if it’s the sixth.
By this level, whoever Swiatek is enjoying is seemingly pondering, ‘Please, make it cease’, and is nearly joyful to get off the court docket. By the sixth recreation of a bagel set, Swiatek hits her returns 4 miles per hour sooner on common than in recreation one — reflecting a better degree of aggression as she motors in the direction of the ending line.
General, Swiatek returns much better in units she wins 6-0 than within the ones which are 6-2 or nearer. She returns 88 per cent of first serves and 92 per cent of second serves within the former, in comparison with 79 per cent and 84 per cent within the latter.
Swiatek is a grasp of enjoying with a lead (Clive Brunskill/Getty Photographs)
In addition to getting extra balls in play, she returns extra aggressively in bagel units. Her first-serve return hit level is nearer to the baseline (12.2m from the online in comparison with 12.4m) and her first-serve return internet clearance is decrease (87cm in comparison with 92cm).
These are small numbers in isolation, however put collectively they add as much as Swiatek strangling her opponents’ recreation.
“I felt like her depth was so good from the primary ball,” world No 16 Madison Keys, who previously few weeks has misplaced 6-1, 6-3 to Switaek in each Madrid and Rome, says of that first assembly. “She makes you’re feeling like you’ll be able to by no means get your foot on the fuel. After which, impulsively, you’re the one backing up off the baseline, and that’s not a state of affairs you need to end up in. You don’t need to be behind the baseline attempting to run.
“She places you in a difficult place since you really feel like it’s important to go for one thing you don’t need to and you then’re threading the needle between going for one thing that may very well be dumb but in addition feeling prefer it’s form of the one factor you are able to do.”
Gamers don’t simply wrestle to stick with her — she takes matches away from them.
When Swiatek is rolling, she will get extra medical.
Dealing with Swiatek on a roll is usually a disorienting expertise (Julian Finney/Getty Photographs)
Break-point conversion rises to 67.9 per cent in bagel units from 54.7 in nearer ones, and she or he wins 31.5 per cent of transformed break factors with a winner, in comparison with 26.1 per cent. Generally, Swiatek’s winners as a proportion of her factors gained go up in bagel units (from 26.1 per cent to twenty-eight.9), as do factors gained from pressured errors (17.2 per cent as much as 18.5 per cent).
As Keys defined, quite a lot of these pressured errors come from gamers feeling like they should go for greater than they’re actually comfy with.
What’s hanging about all these knowledge factors is that Swiatek’s groundstrokes don’t change all that a lot.
Her common forehand velocity is similar (75mph), as is her common backhand velocity (70mph). The spin fee is a bit greater throughout bagel units on each the forehand (2476rpm in comparison with 2416) and on the backhand facet (1965rpm in comparison with 1901), however not by a lot. Her common internet clearance is comparable on each wings as properly.
This implies that the sequences the place Swiatek rolls by way of video games are as a lot about momentum and stream as they’re approach. The dominance turns into self-fulfilling as soon as she wins a couple of video games, and she or he and her opponent each really feel like they know what’s coming subsequent, so the begins and ends of factors turn out to be extra inevitable; what occurs in between is much less essential.
Moreover, Swiatek will not be a participant who eases into tournaments — she typically racks up thumping wins early on, which though they’re theoretically towards weaker opponents, nonetheless ship out a message to her rivals and make her much more ominous as she strikes by way of a draw.
Swiatek’s remodelled serve has made her much more of a menace (Tim Clayton/Corbis by way of Getty Photographs)
Certainly one of Swiatek’s predecessors as world No 1, Naomi Osaka, who misplaced 6-4, 6-0 when the pair final met two years in the past, says it’s “unbelievable” how Swiatek can maintain delivering level after level, week after week: “It’s one thing that I truthfully can’t fathom from again once I was No 1 for like 5 seconds.”
“It’s her capability to play one level at a time that places quite a lot of stress on her opponents,” says two-time Australian Open champion Azarenka, who has misplaced 6-4, 6-0 and 6-4, 6-1 to Swiatek of their two most up-to-date conferences. “Not many individuals can determine it out.”
Keys, who has overwhelmed Swiatek beforehand however has additionally suffered a 6-1, 6-0 defeat on prime of these latest losses, agrees: “Her depth is mainly unmatched by anybody else. She’s on you each single level.”
Sofia Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion who was overwhelmed 6-4, 6-1 by Swiatek in that 12 months’s French Open closing, describes her as “tremendous intense”. Throughout that run at Roland Garros 4 years in the past, Swiatek gained a breadstick set in six of her seven matches.
Swiatek’s win over Kenin was her first Grand Slam title (Martin Bureau/AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
This psychological torture doesn’t cease once they get off the court docket.
Swiatek’s opponents — and would-be opponents as attracts unfold — discover themselves in a vicious cycle: the extra bagel units she wins, the extra they concern them, and the extra doubtless they turn out to be.
Gamers are actively having to attempt to block out this popularity she has when making ready to face her.
“I believe when you begin pondering, ‘Ah, perhaps I’m gonna get a 6-0 from Iga’, you then’ll in all probability find yourself getting one,” three-time Grand Slam finalist Ons Jabeur, who misplaced the pair’s most up-to-date assembly 6-1, 6-2, advised The Athletic this week. “Getting that form of karma.
“Not pondering like that’s crucial factor. She’s such an incredible participant, however it is best to at all times take into consideration your self and never get into that mindset.”
Swiatek’s relentlessness creates an aura that her opponents typically wrestle to deal with (Sarah Stier/Getty Photographs)
That is simpler stated than completed.
Her opponents have a tough sufficient time managing their psychological state earlier than accounting for the truth that Swiatek is a grasp of diagnosing it from the opposite finish of the court docket, feeding off it, and taking their thoughts as a lot as their physique. She is an elite downside solver, having been a gifted mathematician at college; as soon as she has figured a participant out, there’s little or no they’ll do.
Gauff, who has misplaced 10 of her 11 conferences with Swiatek (together with 6-1, 6-3 within the French Open closing two years in the past) and has been bagelled by her thrice, agrees: “While you’re enjoying her, you shouldn’t fear concerning the ends in the earlier matches, as a result of daily is a brand new match and a brand new alternative. I believe when you play her occupied with her outcomes, you then in all probability (already) misplaced the match.
“I simply strategy each match as a clear slate. I believe it’s much more essential while you’re enjoying towards anyone who has completed properly previously, simply since you don’t need that to have an effect on the way you play.”
How exhausting is that to do?
“For me, not that arduous,” Gauff says, “simply because I really feel like previously, with the way in which my profession has gone, I performed quite a lot of huge names early. I believe I simply obtained used to separating the identify from, I assume, the match. So for me, it’s not that troublesome. Clearly, enjoying Iga herself is troublesome. However I assume that side doesn’t have an effect on me once I’m enjoying her.”
Rybakina, who has a 4-2 successful report towards Swiatek, says it’s about being centered for each single level: “You need to continuously be saying to your self what it’s important to do.”
To attempt to crack the code although, we flip to Jelena Ostapenko — the all-or-nothing Latvian who has an astonishing 4-0 successful report towards Swiatek. How does she not solely keep away from getting bagelled by Swiatek, however truly discover a strategy to beat her each time?
“That’s my prime secret,” Ostapenko replies, with a smile. “I’m not going to say something.”
OK, however how exhausting is it to stay together with her when she will get going? “That’s my secret,” she repeats.
Time to place the bagel slicer away.
And even when Ostapenko did reveal her secrets and techniques, figuring out what to do to cease Swiatek is one factor; pulling it off underneath stress is sort of one other.
As tennis turns to Paris for this 12 months’s French Open, Iga’s Bakery arrives within the viennoiserie capital of the world very a lot open for enterprise.
(High pictures: Patrick Smith; Clive Brunskill/Getty Photographs; design: John Bradford)