It's Time We Talk About Iga Świątek...

one of the best things that could happen to a young player at the top of the game in tennis is being compared to the all-time greats in the sport let's be clear this is a generational player here however being compared to Legends of the sport is also one of the worst things that could happen to any player because it only leads us down a rabbit hole and leaves everyone with no concrete conclusions at the end of the day right now igas fanch is the subject of debate among tennis fans and all sorts of comparisons have been made sides have been picked and opinions have been formed but just how dominant has fianc been in the last couple of years and should she even be compared to the goats of the sport how does EA's game stack up against her closest Rivals sabalenka and rebaka and what other puzzles does the so-called IGA spanch era have for us pretty amazing really demolished the second best player in the world no we'll dive into all that and much more but first I have to tell you you won't see me on camera this video because I'm currently in Strasburg at the WTI 500 event and I'm really looking forward to Rolling garos EGA just won the Italian open after beating arena sabalenka in the final and she now leads the tour with a 38 and4 record and four titles this season and she hasn't been winning just any titles either she has four WTA 1,000 titles this year it's becoming ridiculous at this point but why has she been such a winning machine this year really when I see questions like what makes EGA so good it's kind of difficult to answer because well there are a lot of different things EGA has upped her average first serve to around 115 mph give or take and she's usually notching a win percentage of around 70 to 75% from those serves EGA isn't remotely close to her Rivals when it comes to firing down Aces but she does make a lot of service winners and also dictates points from those serves I'd take that over making so many double faults like some of her closest competitors for me it's really the consistency you don't even have to look too far back to see how EA's first serve came to the rescue in Rome EGA saved all seven break points she faced in the final often doing so with strong first serves right into sabala's body I would also argue that EGA has one of the best second serves on the tour at the moment no other player can boast of a higher win percentage from their second serve than EGA this year and don't even get me started on her ground strokes and Court coverage EGA is a monster on the return which speaks volumes about her playing style we saw how strong her depth on the return was and this proved to be a huge factor in Rome with EA's return quality opponents are often forced into hitting that extra ball or redlining the next shot and this makes it more likely that they're going to make errors EA's super aggressive Style on Clay is helped by forehand Top Spin that's been compared in some ways to what we saw in the ATP Tour from Prime Rafa of course those comparisons aren't apples to apples but looking at the insane revolutions per minute on those Top Spin shots it it becomes easy to see why so many opponents struggle against fian's forehand there's a whole lot of Spin and speed on the forehand making it the heaviest shot on the WTA tour and then we have a super consistent backhand that also isn't too far from being among the best on tour when it comes to movement it gets even more ridiculous EA's footwork is insane no one changes Direction better than her and you'll be hardpressed to find a better mover on the WTA tour Coco golf fans might argue on that one though but the point is is that sponch has the ability to attack and defend on both Wings stepping into the court quickly even when on the defense she can quickly transition rallies into offense 's anticipation also makes her movement even better and the way she slides in both directions even on hard courts is just mind-boggling to me we could also talk about her tennis IQ which is something that has often been overlooked sponch usually seems to know the right shot to go for so although she's super aggressive and likes to smother her opponents for a living she actually does so in a rather controlled way going for the higher percentage shots more often than not EGA is patient with Point construction and works with percentages rather than just ripping the ball does this make her a less exciting player for some fans maybe but I don't care because the results speak for themselves EGA might not exactly be a walking highlight reel as often as some fans might want but that's completely fine in fact I lowkey believe that this is one of the things that makes EGA special she doesn't need to produce the highest level her base level is enough to get the job done most of the time there just aren't that many matches where you would look back and say EGA really played badly and then there's the mental aspect of EA's game IGA has been working with Polish psychologist Daria Abramovich since 2019 and it's easy to see how far she's come in terms of dealing with her emotions her psychologist has not only helped her with maintaining Focus during play but also between points and games but someone out there might be like okay sure Noah but the best player in the WTA hasn't actually played that great in four out of five slams what do you have to say about that well I'd say you're making a great point it's a real head scratcher one minute she's making a mockery of the doubters bageling her opponents and looking unbeatable you start thinking she's got the season in the bag three Majors minimum but then she'll fall short of reaching the final rounds of the slams confusing right eagle lost to a player outside the top 50 in the third round of this year's Australian Open and then she lost to yena ostapenko in the fourth round of the US Open last year there was also the quarterfinal loss to Alina Spina at Wimbledon and then a fourth round loss in straight sets against Elena rebaka at the 2023 Australian Open so yeah we are in that rare place where the most dominant player on the tour hasn't quite performed across the board everyone expects fanch to win on all surfaces but it's very rare to see that happen we could draw parallel with Rafa's game on the men's side he's been kicking butt on Clay since he was what like 3 years old or something but as Rafa entered into his prime years between 2008 and 2013 we saw that dominance on all surfaces beating Federer at Wimbledon and the Australian Open well also winning the US Open a number of times during those years it's not hard to imagine that being the case for EGA too we saw her putting in the work on the grass courts last year and we already know how good she is on hard courts I can agree that as dominant as EGA is she has had her share of wild losses but so has every other top player so in my opinion this isn't that big of a deal but let me take you guys back to this statement that sabalenka recently made during the pre-tournament conference in Rome obviously eiga is much better on Clay than me for example I would say El is better on grass and I'm maybe a little bit better on hardore but at the same time I cannot say that it's about the surface because I mean as the time shows that I can beat uh them on Clay on on heart on on grass do you completely agree with everything she said honestly I can see where sabalenka was coming from but you can trust EA fans to cook up a comeback one fan asked why sabalenka wasn't number one then since most tournaments were played on hardcourts another fan reminded sabalenka that EGA had eight big titles on hardcourts compared to sabala's five and also the fact that sabalenka had suffered so many defeats to EGA on hard courts EA also leads their head-to-head 8 to3 with all of Sabal Lena's wins Going the Distance I honestly believe Arena didn't mean to start anything with those comments but the point is that EGA has become so good that she might be miles ahead of even her closest Rivals let's start with the grand slams IGA has four at the moment which is the same number as sabalenka Koko goof and rebaka IGA now has a mindboggling 10 WTA 1000 titles and wait she's only 22 years old how many ta 1000s do sabalenka rebaka and Goff have Eight titles in total and EA has more big titles than the rest of the top five combined and how many weeks have her Rivals been at the top of the ranking never mind I'm not going to make that comp because it'll just be unfair Point made EA stands alone at the top but she keeps losing to rebaka now how does that keep happening well for me the answer is simple no matter how dominant you are as a player there's always going to be that matchup that you might struggle with for rebaka she can serve Lights Out Create Pace with those crosscourt forehands to EA's forehand which makes EGA a bit uncomfortable in the past you could even see the frustration on EA's face she doesn't like to be smothered she wants to dictate the points against hard-hitting players like rebaka who take time away and it's a lot more difficult so EGA ends up leaking a lot of errors on her forehand and not doing enough damage on the return rebaka leads their head-to-head 4 to2 and has beaten EA twice on clay in stutgart and in Rome if it came down to who I thought was more of a threat to EGA in any matchup I would 100% pick a healthy rebaka over sabalenka simply because of the style of play for this to change EGA has to work on a number of things now truth be told she's already working on being less predictable rather than fighting fire with fire egum might need to add more variety to her game with the slice Drop shots and more spins to change the momentum of the game and expose Reb in his movement rather than just playing into her hands it's for a similar reason that IGA has suffered against yena ostapenko I'd love to see EA's problem solving skills shine against players that excel at First Strike tennis like rebaka and AAP Peno I would also love to see more from her Net game as well Switching gears now I need to update you guys on something lately we've been thinking about the direction of the channel as you might already know we had two copyright strikes from ATP media which is such a bummer because we were really just trying to bring you the best quality tennis content we've already reached out to the ATP to clarify the situation and look for a possible solution in the coming weeks we hope that video production will be back to normal and I just have to say that I appreciate all the support that I've received from you guys but if anything does happen to Courtside tennis we'll be in touch via the newsletter so if you aren't yet subscribed to the newsletter now would be the best time to do so I'll leave the link in the description but don't worry it's not all doom and gloom I do have some good news for y'all we're working on designs for our merchandise this week and hopefully by the end of the week we'll have more designs ready for our Courtside tennis shop on top of that we're having our subscribers help us pick the designs since we're basically making it for you as a thank you for supporting the channel you could support me and help keep the channel going by placing your orders once we hit the ground running on the merch okay back to the video earlier in the video I mentioned that one of the worst things to happen to a player would be comparing them to the all-time greats more so at an early age EGA is only 22 but she's gradually putting herself in that Elite level status make no mistake I'm not saying she's there yet but the signs are auspicious and we can see the trajectory for ourselves one could even argue that in a different era EA's numbers could have even put a player into those goat conversations already back in 2020 the statement was already clear as world number 54 sponch won her first Grand Slam title at Roland Goos winning all seven of her matches in straight sets and without losing more than four games in any set and she followed that up with a top 10 debut the following year between February and early July 2022 sponch went 37 matches unbeaten the longest winning streak of the 21st century she claimed six titles along the way as she established her stay at the top of the rankings that same year she also became the first player since Serena Williams in 2013 to collect over 11,000 ranking points in a single season too not too shabby EA's level dropped in 2023 and she temporarily lost that number number one spot but she still managed to win six titles in a campaign that wasn't as statistically dominant as the previous season and now here we are in 2024 with EGA back to being at her very best with 21 WTA titles from 25 finals four grand slams 10 WTA 1000 titles the WTA finals all at 22 years old let that sink in there really isn't much to say at this point in fact only these Legends won more titles at that age oh and she's also spent over a 100 weeks as world number one and is in this exclusive company right here but at the same time we really shouldn't be making these comparisons just yet I understand that it can be very tempting to do so but it really doesn't help that much EGA is literally just running the table at this point and how she manages to do all of this against very respectable opponents is crazy for so long there was talk about the lack of depth on the WTA tour but now everything has changed and this makes what EA's doing even more special the playing has gotten a lot stronger but EGA continues to dish out bagels and bread sticks like she owns her own Bakery just the other day I watched how she saved all 10 break points against Madison Keys in the quarterfinal in Rome and then created a score line that made it seem as though the match was one-sided it reminded me of how often we see ego winning tournaments without dropping a set or only dropping a few games as a neutral fan I'd love to see more intense rivalries for fiant because sometimes I just get tired of seeing so many bagels meanwhile the French Open is around the the corner and EGA is on a mission to win the Triple Crown of Madrid Rome and Roland garos Serena Williams is the only woman to have accomplished defeat in the history of the WTA but at this point I have no reason to think sponch can't do the triple but there's just one topic left to address for those who might have missed out on the news the world number one became the first to sign a worldwide brand ambassadorship with the beauty company Lancome last month on top of that she has Partnerships and endorsements with Visa Porsche Rolex and Lego last year she became the first female tennis player to be sponsored by Roger Federer backed Swiss company on lately EGA has been killing it from a marketing standpoint she might not have that personality that wants to be in front of a microphone but she's already beating those unmarketable allegations one photo shoot at a time I find her personality off the court to be very charming and it's clear that at this point as she continues to let her racket do the talking on the court it's only a matter of time before she gets the respect she deserves in my opinion EGA has elevated the women's game she came at a time when there was a huge void left from Ash's retirement and she hasn't looked back since then EA's dominance has taken the level of tennis on the WTA to the next level it might be hard to see everything that is happening but I think we can all agree on the fact that we're witnessing a generational Talent EGA turns 23 at the end of this month I know the comparisons with the the alltime greats will continue for as long as she's playing it's also quite obvious that sabalenka and rebaka will continue to give her a run for her money but at the end of the day EA is in a league of her own at least I believe so but what are your thoughts about EA's fantech there's a huge gap in coverage and deep Dives about top players on the WTA tour I hope to continue with the Deep Dives on both tours that's if we don't get canceled before then if you loved this video please hit that subscribe button and help us towards our goal of 100,000 subscribers before the end of the year and of course if there's any other video you want to see let us know in the comments until next time keep swinging