After years emulating the great Justine Henin on clay at Roland Garros, Iga Swiatek is beginning to follow in the Belgian’s footsteps on grass.
Swiatek powered into her first Wimbledon final with a 6-2 6-0 demolition of Belinda Bencic on Thursday, and by doing so, the 24-year-old became the youngest player since Henin in 2003 to reach Grand Slam singles finals on all three surfaces.
Swiatek’s achievements continue a pattern of remarkably similar stats and career trajectory to the Belgian, who last played in 2011.
Henin retired having spent 117 total weeks at world No.1, a position Swiatek has held on and off for 125 weeks.
Like Swiatek, Henin’s first Grand Slam title came at Roland Garros and the next Slam venue at which she triumphed was Flushing Meadows. Henin scooped both the French and US titles in a banner 2003 season, a feat Swiatek matched when she won both in 2022.
In Paris specifically, their records are almost identical.
Before Swiatek completed her Roland Garros hat-trick in 2024 to win her fourth French title in five years, Henin had been the last woman to win three in a row (2005-07) and four in five years (2003, 2005-07).
This year, Swiatek matched Henin’s 24-match winning streak at Roland Garros, extending her own unbeaten run to 26 matches before Aryna Sabalenka stopped her in the semifinals.
Both Sabalenka and Swiatek then advanced to the last four at Wimbledon, becoming the first women’s duo to reach the semifinals at the first three majors in a season since Henin and Kim Clijsters in 2006.
Clijsters, Henin’s countrywoman, sees the parallels between Swiatek and her great rival.
"She reminds me a lot of Justine, as well, when she's playing,” Clijsters observed on the Served with Andy Roddick podcast.
“Maybe not her playing style or her technique, but there's that determination, the way she walks out there, maybe the hat.
“Like that whole kind of vibe, it feels like Justine out there."
Interestingly, Clijsters was once coached by Wim Fissette, who now works with Swiatek and has implemented tactical and technical changes in her game.
Following Swiatek’s semifinal exit in Paris, she and Fissette enjoyed extra grasscourt preparation time, completing a training block in Mallorca and focusing on grass-specific movement.
Much like Henin, Swiatek grew up on clay and developed a style perfectly suited to the red dirt. But there are plenty of elements in her game that work on the lawns.
Henin possessed an excellent slice backhand, touch and net skills, plus as a shorter player had an advantageously-lower centre of gravity which gelled with the lower-bouncing surface.
Swiatek achieves that lower centre of gravity by crouching into her shots better than anyone, while her compact backhand and outstanding footwork also translate well to grass.
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When Swiatek beat Bencic, she leapfrogged Australian great Evonne Goolagong Cawley into 10th place on the women’s list for the highest Grand Slam winning percentage in the Open era.
Next ahead of her on that list, in ninth place? Unsurprisingly, it’s Henin, whom Swiatek would very nearly equal should she beat Amanda Anisimova in Saturday’s final.
Henin, a two-time finalist at the All England Club, never completely trusted her game on grass, and Wimbledon was the only one of the four majors to elude her.
“I never had confidence on grass,” she revealed in a 2011 interview. “I was convinced I wasn’t powerful enough, too small, basically."
Swiatek, meanwhile, admitted she never imagined she would reach a Wimbledon final.
But this weekend she has a chance to achieve something Henin couldn’t, and win her sixth major title – just one shy of Henin’s career haul of seven.
“For now I've been enjoying just this new feeling of being a bit more comfortable on grass,” Swiatek said.
“[Anisimova] must be playing great. She also had a great tournament [at Queen’s] before Wimbledon. She knows how to play on grass. With her game style, the surface fits her.
“So it's going to be a challenge.”