Iga Swiatek won’t have forgotten that, at Australian Open 2025, she was a point away from reaching her first final at Melbourne Park.
It’s this narrow loss, followed by a season of professional growth and historic achievements, that could set her up for ultimate success when she returns for AO 2026.
Swiatek’s 5-7 6-1 7-6[10-8] semifinal loss to Madison Keys at the last AO came amid what was considered a slump in the Polish superstar’s career. From the start of 2022, a season when she ascended to the top of the sport, to when she won her third straight Roland Garros title in 2024, Swiatek reached 22 singles finals, winning 18.
But after that 2024 triumph in Paris, it would be almost 13 months before she appeared in another final – a drought she very nearly broke when she held match point against Keys deep in that third set. While many concerned themselves over this perceived backslide, she wasn’t far off the stratospheric level she’d maintained for the better part of three years.
At Roland Garros in 2025, she was a set away from a fourth consecutive final before falling to irrepressible world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka. And at her very next event, on grass in Bad Homburg, she reached that long-awaited final, setting the stage for what was to unfold at Wimbledon.
There, Swiatek triumphed in one of the most emphatic displays of her career. She dropped one set in seven matches, winning her final 20 consecutive games as she overwhelmed Belinda Bencic and Amanda Anisimova, respectively, in the semis and final.
What’s more, it came on a surface where her game never seemed the most natural fit, at a tournament many observers felt she may never win.
Now with six Grand Slam titles across all three surfaces, she’s set up for a shot at a glittering career Grand Slam at Australian Open 2026.
“It sounds amazing. Pretty surreal. I'm just appreciating every minute. I'm just proud of myself because, yeah, who would have expected that?” Swiatek reflected after her Wimbledon triumph. “I don't know what's ahead of me obviously… I feel like tennis keeps surprising me, and I keep surprising myself.”
The switch to grass kick-started a back-half of the season during which Swiatek was at times the game’s dominant player. Hard-court titles followed in Cincinnati and Seoul, and after Roland Garros she won 27 of her next 30 matches – a success rate of 90 per cent.
This evoked shades of her dominant 2022 season, when she won six straight titles and built a 37-match winning streak, and collected two major trophies among eight titles overall.
"The bar right now is Iga, and the dominance of what she did in 2022, we haven't seen for a long, long time,” former Australian pro and leading coach Nicole Pratt told ausopen.com in 2023.
"Players are now asking themselves: OK, how do I beat Iga? Because she is the standard. [You have to deal with] her physicality, and also what she's able to do with the ball at end range – she can turn something into offense when she was on defence. So a player has to mentally deal with that, because against most other players, that ball doesn't come back.
“I also think about her relentlessness; when she has a ball that deserves to be put away, it doesn't come back. There's an urgency in everything she does.”
Several women have since risen to meet that bar, closing the gap Swiatek had created and contributing to the incredible level of tennis, and strength at the top, that has boosted women’s tennis into a new golden era.
Sabalenka has actually surpassed the bar, wresting the No.1 ranking from Swiatek and holding it for every week of the 2025 season. She will arrive at Melbourne Park as the two-time reigning US Open champion targeting a seventh consecutive hard-court major final at AO 2026.
In addition to Sabalenka, and the ever-reliable Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, we’ve seen the emergence of Anisimova – who stopped Swiatek in the US Open quarters and at the WTA Finals – and the resurgence of Elena Rybakina, who overwhelmed Swiatek 3-6 6-1 6-0 at the WTA Finals.
“I am still young, so there's a lot to change and improve in my game,” Swiatek said before the WTA Finals, adding that she felt her serve, and ability on faster surfaces, had improved significantly under coach Wim Fissette in 2025. “I had some challenges this year that really were kind of new, and I needed to adjust them a little bit more.
“Overall, I think winning Wimbledon made this season already super special and amazing… Then playing great in Cincinnati and winning Seoul as well. I was happy to play these tournaments, feel free with my game.
“It was a tricky season, but at the end, I can say a good one."
Swiatek will fancy her chances when the new season dawns.
Already a two-time AO semifinalist, conditions will not present a problem given she has thrived on both slow and fast hard courts. She’ll also enjoy another solid lead-up at United Cup 2026, where she is guaranteed multiple singles matches and always buoyed by representing Poland.
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Set to be seeded No.2 in Melbourne, she owns a sparkling 83 per cent winning record at Grand Slam level. She’ll benefit from another off-season to fine-tune nuances in her game, and then there’s the prospect of a career Slam – what must be a mouthwatering prospect for a champion as motivated and competitively intense as Swiatek.
She’ll be tough to stop.