The Swiatek era: Reflecting on 100 weeks atop the WTA rankings

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Bionic Poster
Iga Swiatek is now 1 of just 9 players to complete at least 100 weeks as WTA #1:

In Order:

1. Steffi Graf 377
2. Martina Navratilova 332
3. Serena Williams 319
4. Chris Evert 260
5. Martina Hingis 209
6. Monica Seles 178
7. Ashleigh Barty 121
8. Justine Henin 117
9. Iga Swiatek 100


www.wtatennis.com

The Swiatek era: Reflecting on 100 weeks atop the WTA rankings

Welcome to the century club, Iga. The top-ranked player has now reached 100 weeks in the lead position, a milestone that has cemented her atop some of the best company to ever set foot on a court.
www.wtatennis.com www.wtatennis.com
 
Mainad said:
Iga Swiatek is now 1 of just 9 players to complete at least 100 weeks as WTA #1:

In Order:

1. Steffi Graf 377
2. Martina Navratilova 332
3. Serena Williams 319
4. Chris Evert 260
5. Martina Hingis 209
6. Monica Seles 178
7. Ashleigh Barty 121
8. Justine Henin 117
9. Iga Swiatek 100


www.wtatennis.com

The Swiatek era: Reflecting on 100 weeks atop the WTA rankings

Welcome to the century club, Iga. The top-ranked player has now reached 100 weeks in the lead position, a milestone that has cemented her atop some of the best company to ever set foot on a court.
www.wtatennis.com www.wtatennis.com
Click to expand...
Except Barty all of these are ATG. Good for iga. And she isn't even 25.
 
There were some questioning her claim to being #1 when Barty suddenly retired and Iga took over however Swiatek shut that down very quickly when she went on the longest win streak of a woman this century winning 37 matches in a row (4x 1000 tournaments, a 500 and a slam). In 2022 she also became the first woman to win 2 slams in a calendar year since Kerber achieved it back in 2016.

Her record in finals is insane with 19 titles and 4 losses. In her finals she has fed 9 bagels and 5 breadsticks.

An absolute beast of a player and I’m so glad to have her on tour.
 
Mainad said:
Iga Swiatek is now 1 of just 9 players to complete at least 100 weeks as WTA #1:

In Order:

1. Steffi Graf 377
2. Martina Navratilova 332
3. Serena Williams 319
4. Chris Evert 260
5. Martina Hingis 209
6. Monica Seles 178
7. Ashleigh Barty 121
8. Justine Henin 117
9. Iga Swiatek 100


www.wtatennis.com

The Swiatek era: Reflecting on 100 weeks atop the WTA rankings

Welcome to the century club, Iga. The top-ranked player has now reached 100 weeks in the lead position, a milestone that has cemented her atop some of the best company to ever set foot on a court.
www.wtatennis.com www.wtatennis.com
Click to expand...

Ashleigh is only 27.

I wonder what Iga’s would be if Barty were still playing.
 
Federev said:
Ashleigh is only 27.

I wonder what Iga’s would be if Barty were still playing.
Click to expand...
I respect Barty, and we can speculate, but not sure what that would prove. While I generally resist hypotheticals, if we just look at slams, three of Iga's were at RG, where she's superior, and the other at USO, where I also think she's a better player. Ash, so far, is better at Wimby and the AO. I'd say that her absence hasn't really affected Iga's ascension to #1 and her close to two years at #1.
 
100 weeks as world no. 1 before turning 23 is just phenomenal. She has been an absolute revelation during the past 3 and a half years or so.

As I said elsewhere, during the first 9 of those 100 weeks, she wasn’t a reigning grand slam champion though they came on the back of her stunning run of success to win 3 consecutive WTA 1000 titles, with her also holding a 4th title at that level in Rome. But of course during the remaining 91 weeks she has always held at least 1 grand slam title. And during the only period of time when she was world no. 1 and didn’t hold a WTA 1000 title, she still held 2 grand slam titles and 3 WTA 500 titles.
 
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Her only rival for the #1 ranking has been Sabalenka, the world #2, who briefly took it off her for 8 weeks last autumn but she is currently over 2,700 ranking points behind so no immediate prospect of taking over again.
 
nolefam_2024 said:
High ceiling. Let's see if she can win all 4 slams as well. I am assuming she will win AO but Wimbledon would be more difficult
Click to expand...

Not so sure about AO. Gonna be difficult to beat AO specialists Rybakina or Sabalenka if she can't even overcome Collins or Noskova. I have watched all her matches there and it's clear she doesn't like the conditions. It's either winning ugly or the door. This year she arrived in the best conditions (won Beijing, WTA Finals and all her United Cup matches) and yet she looked shaky from the get go in Melbourne.
Wondering how many weeks she will add though. I think Rybakina and Sabalenka peak higher but Swiatek is much more consistent throughout the entire season. If she avoids injuries, she can reach 200, 300 weeks and maybe even more.
 
Tennisfan339 said:
Not so sure about AO. Gonna be difficult to beat AO specialists Rybakina or Sabalenka if she can't even overcome Collins or Noskova. I have watched all her matches there and it's clear she doesn't like the conditions. It's either winning ugly or the door. This year she arrived in the best conditions (won Beijing, WTA Finals and all her United Cup matches) and yet she looked shaky from the get go in Melbourne.
Wondering how many weeks she will add though. I think Rybakina and Sabalenka peak higher but Swiatek is much more consistent throughout the entire season. If she avoids injuries, she can reach 200, 300 weeks and maybe even more.
Click to expand...
How is Rybakina an AO specialist? Outside of the final she made in 2023 her results are:
2024: 2R
2022: 2R
2021: 2R
2020: 3R

It’s funny you mention her being unable to overcome Collins because Collins herself is more of an AO specialist with the final in 2022 and SF in 2019.
 
RaulRamirez said:
I respect Barty, and we can speculate, but not sure what that would prove. While I generally resist hypotheticals, if we just look at slams, three of Iga's were at RG, where she's superior, and the other at USO, where I also think she's a better player. Ash, so far, is better at Wimby and the AO. I'd say that her absence hasn't really affected Iga's ascension to #1 and her close to two years at #1.
Click to expand...

I just don’t think she’d be where she is if Barty hadn’t retired so young.

That’s kind of my first “reflection”.
 
jmnk said:
As evidenced by wins this year (tied for first), winning percentage(tied for first), and the wta race ranking (first)
Ok, maybe these are bad examples to support your point:rolleyes::rolleyes:
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She’s losing on clay her best surface looked like trash at the AO. The field is already catching up and she’s in decline. The results show that
 
THUNDERVOLLEY said:
What--exactly--makes this a "Swiatek era?" I ask because weeks at #1, but 4 majors does not make her the dominant leader of an era by any stretch of the imagination.
Click to expand...
I don't know, maybe if you bothered to read the WTA article that OP cited you would get the answer.....
 
As the article illustrates, Iga -- not yet 23 -- is putting together quite the career resume.
As for the term "era", I don't know that there's a single definition that will satisfy everyone. Actually, I know that there isn't.

Let's just say that she's been, arguably, the greatest women's player to hit the tour since, perhaps (going by dates of birth) Justine Henin? I'd tend to rank her above both Barty and Sharapova, and with, hopefully, a long future ahead of her. Is "era" a stretch? Maybe. But if she earns YE#1 for the third consecutive year, that's less of a stretch. Anyway, like her or not, she's a helluva player, and already getting close to Top 10 (I might have her at 12 or 13 now) of the women's OE - counting Court and King who started beforehand.
 
TheGoldenEra1990’s said:
She’s losing on clay her best surface looked like trash at the AO. The field is already catching up and she’s in decline. The results show that
Click to expand...
Yes, you are correct, she lost one match on clay this year. Against #4 player in the world that is playing arguably the best tennis of her life. You also do know that Rybakina's carrer winning percentage on clay is _better_ than on hard courts, right? Meaning Rybakina is and has been actually the second best clay court player over last few years.
Indeed, losing to Rybakina clearly means that swiatek should hang up a racket, there's no point to continue the career. Geeesh....
 
jmnk said:
Yes, you are correct, she lost one match on clay this year. Against #4 player in the world that is playing arguably the best tennis of her life. You also do know that Rybakina's carrer winning percentage on clay is _better_ than on hard courts, right? Meaning Rybakina is and has been actually the second best clay court player over last few years.
Indeed, losing to Rybakina clearly means that swiatek should hang up a racket, there's no point to continue the career. Geeesh....
Click to expand...

The point is there is no “swiatek era”. The field has almost caught up and she hasn’t gotten better at all. She won’t even come close to catching Graf. She’s probably going to drop below top 5 by next year
 
jmnk said:
I don't know, maybe if you bothered to read the WTA article that OP cited you would get the answer.....
Click to expand...
Already aware of it before he posted it, hence the question, which cannot end with any "Swiatek era", for the aforementioned reason that weeks at #1 (the motivator / subject of this thread), and 4 majors does not make her the dominant leader of an era by any stretch of the imagination.
TheGoldenEra1990’s said:
The point is there is no “swiatek era”. The field has almost caught up and she hasn’t gotten better at all. She won’t even come close to catching Graf. She’s probably going to drop below top 5 by next year
Click to expand...
Agreed, but for some reason, certain people resort to trying to crown certain players as either a GOAT in the making (see: some Barty and Alcaraz threads here and on other platforms) or the leader of an era when Swiatek's achievements are not--by any previous measure in tennis history--that to take control of--and have an era named for her.
 
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