Retired Grand Slam champions Andy Roddick and Kim Clijsters recently reflected on Iga Swiatek‘s fourth Roland Garros win, praising her improvement and dominance.
Swiatek captured her third straight title in Paris, putting her in elusive company with Monica Seles and Justine Henin. She is now just three Roland Garros crowns away from matching Chris Evert’s total of seven, which is a record on the WTA Tour.
The Pole was at her scintillating best in the final, sweeping aside first-time Grand Slam finalist Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 6-1. With the win, Swiatek crossed the $30 million mark in career prize money and sits ninth among all-time highest earners.
Roddick, who has previously lauded Swiatek’s movement and compared her to Rafael Nadal, couldn’t help but expound further on what makes the 23-year-old such a smooth mover on the court.
Speaking on his eponymous podcast, Served with Andy Roddick, the American former World No. 1 believes Swiatek is not the fastest woman but is efficient with her movement.
“I don’t think she would win a sprinting contest against everyone on tour but I think the way that she is efficient with her movement—she is sliding, she’s hitting, and then at the end of the slide she’s already a foot back towards the center—it’s all done in this one motion which makes me want to vomit with jealousy.”
“It’s just this insane thing, and also I’m not going to deal from a place of being hyperbolic, but I think she has some of the best footwork from the middle of the court I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Clijsters, who was twice runner-up at Roland Garros, was a guest on the show and praised Swiatek’s mindset and her constant desire to improve in all facets of her game. The Belgian opined that the Polish star will remain “unchallenged” if nobody is able to “hit her off the court.”
“She has such an open mind to learn. She’s improving all the time, and so her mindset is that she wants to be one of the great ones. I think everybody kind of penciled her to win the tournament before the draw was even made.”
“Her matches are all pretty straightforward, nobody really challenges her, so it’s unless you can like kind of hit her off the court, I think, yeah she’s not going to have any problems with anybody really.”
