Opinion: No guarantee a coaching change will help Iga Swiatek’s game

There was some interesting news coming out of south Florida this week where the Miami Open was taking place. That is because according to Emily Salley of the BBC on Monday, world number three Iga Swiatek of Warsaw, Poland has fired her coach, Wim Fissette of Sint-Truiden, Belgium.

Fissette had coached Swiatek for the last 18 months. Swiatek’s most notable result in that time was winning Wimbledon. It was one of the most dominant Wimbledon finals in major tennis history, as Swiatek completely clobbered Amanda Anisimova of the United States 6-0, 6-0.

Also while Fissette was coaching Swiatek, the Polish star reached the semifinals of the Australian Open and French Open in 2025. She also won the Cincinnati Open in 2025 (beat Italian Jasmine Paolini in the final, 7-5, 6-4) and the Korea Open in 2025 (beat Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia in the final, 1-6, 7-6, 7-5).

But in 2026, we have not seen the best from Swiatek to date. She lost to world number two Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open (7-5, 6-1). That was followed by a 2-6, 6-4, 7-5 loss to Maria Sakkari of Greece in the quarterfinals of Qatar, a 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 loss to Elina Svitolina of Ukraine in the quarterfinals of Indian Wells, and a shocking 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 loss to fellow Pole Magda Linette in the second round of Miami on Thursday.

It will now be interesting to see who Swiatek hires as her next coach with the clay court season just around the corner. The clay is Swiatek’s best surface as she has won the French Open four times. One rumour had Piotr Wozniacki of Poland (father of Caroline Wozniacki) being Swiatek’s next coach, but Piotr Wozniacki has denied those rumours. Due to the fact Swiatek needs to improve her game physically and mentally, there is no guarantee a coaching change will benefit Swiatek in the short term.