That is about Iga Swiatek however earlier than we get to that, particular point out to Ash Barty, Danielle Collins, Jelena Ostapenko, Alize Cornet, Caroline Garcia, Beatriz Haddad Maia, Madison Keys, Barbora Krejcikova and Aryna Sabalenka.
These are the ladies to have overwhelmed Swiatek in a jaw-dropping season the place she has misplaced solely 9 instances; the ninth being towards Sabalenka within the semi-finals of the WTA Finals in Fort Price. Very like in a majority of tournaments this yr, the world No 1 seemed on the right track to bulldoze her solution to the season-ending trophy—Swiatek surrendered simply 13 video games within the group stage—however the machine snapped simply because the end line approached.
“I am not going to mislead you, I have been ready for that second,” the Pole instructed reporters after her 2-6, 6-2, 1-6 defeat. “This season has been so intense and I am so pleased with myself that I may play so nicely until the tip of it. I am pleased that it is carried out.”
This requires a glance again to her staggeringly dominant season in a risky yr for girls’s tennis that had its fair proportion of headline-grabbing moments: Barty’s retirement after the triumph in Australia, Serena Williams’s goodbye (or is it?) after the tears in New York, a Moscow-born ladies’s singles champion at Russia-banned Wimbledon, a late venue seize for the WTA Finals in Texas on account of WTA’s continued China shun over the Peng Shuai problem.
Nothing fairly just like the blockbuster Swiatek present, although: 2 Grand Slam titles, 8 WTA trophies, a 68-9 win-loss file, a 37-match profitable streak, a hefty $9,405,525 in event prize cash (for contextual comparability, Carlos Alcaraz, the present males’s world No 1 after an equally imposing season, has earned $7,627,613. Thoughts you, plenty of non-Slam tournaments supply lesser prize cash for girls in comparison with males).
A few of these astounding numbers higher or match these in a century (the 37-match, 135-day unbeaten run) and in many years (her 15 consecutive wins towards top-10 opponents is bettered solely Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova within the final 40 years).
Taking on the No 1 reign from Barty in March, Swiatek is about to finish the yr with 11,085 factors on the rankings chart, greater than double the second-best, Ons Jabeur. These factors are essentially the most on the ladies’s tour since Serena accrued 13,615 in 2013, arguably the American’s most ruthless season.
Swiatek, 21, is already grazing these Serena-GOAT pastures. Her 68 victories this yr are essentially the most since Serena’s 78 from that 2013 season, her eight titles three shy of Serena’s 11 and her 22 bagels (6-0 set wins) no much less candy than Serena’s 25.
However maybe the standout piece of stat is her 47 hard-court wins in 2022, the fifth-highest in a single season because the flip of the century.
The chic in Swiatek has been evident on clay for the final couple of seasons after capturing her first Slam on the 2020 French Open. She grew into an equally relentless beast on arduous courts this season, growing a extra aggressive model of play and including extra weapons to her energy recreation in tune to the sooner courts.
That will guarantee she collected the French Open-US Open double this yr (the primary girl to take action since—shock, shock—Serena in 2013) and have become the youngest participant to dazzle with a Sunshine Double (profitable the Indian Wells and Miami hard-court occasions in the identical season).
5 of her season’s eight titles got here on arduous courts. The six tournaments that Swiatek bossed on the WTA tour en path to her 37-match win run had been cut up into three every on arduous and clay courts. The one little glitch to her clutch season got here after French Open, with early exits at Wimbledon and from a few lead-up tournaments to the US Open.
“It is simply loopy that it occurs,” Swiatek mentioned of her season that was. “It is that sort of factor that’s going to stick with you for the remainder of your profession. And it is one thing to be pleased with.”
Challenges for the subsequent season? Backing up the “loopy” of 2022 with a constant 2023, and cracking the inexperienced code of grass.
Work on that, nonetheless, can look ahead to the Polish phenomenon. “I need to spend eight days not desirous about something and never doing something,” Swiatek mentioned.
She’s earned it alright.