Iga Swiatek’s split with long-time coach Tomasz Wiktorowski was quite unexpected, and it certainly caught the tennis world by surprise. The reason? During his tenure, Swiatek won four Grand Slam titles and an Olympic bronze medal. In fact, 19 out of her 22 career titles came during this three-year span with Wiktorowski. Indeed, this was a bold move by the world number one! So speculations started flying instantly.

On one hand, some cited Swiatek’s poor form on hard and grass courts as the main reason. For context, while Iga has a remarkable 87.08% winning record on clay, her hard and grass court records stand at 79.05% and 70.59%, respectively. Others speculated that Swiatek’s psychologist might have played a role in the decision. Did Daria Abramowicz really influence Wiktorowski’s dismissal? Iga’s team is silent. But that is not stopping the Polish media from ripping Daria apart.

On October 4, the day Iga announced her split with her coach, we unexpectedly heard Jan Tomaszewski, who usually unsparingly reviews football, speak about the influence of Abramowicz in this sacking issue. He stated, “I agree 100 percent; something is wrong here.” On the other hand, commentator Tomasz Wolfke was even more scathing.

During his interview with the Interia portal after the coaching split, Wolfke said, “How much did Wiktorowski have to put his ears to the ground in this extremely unique situation, in which it is clearly visible that Daria Abramovich is the eminence grise of this team? I don’t recall another situation in sports when the psychologist was so visible.“

He further added, “Of course, I don’t question the fact that this team is very professional because it is. However, it is headed by the player’s father, not a hired manager. The main role in it is played not by the coach but by the psychologist.” Now one more renowned Polish commentator, Joanna Sakowicz-Kostecka, is in the mix, but she is on the other side of the battle.

While addressing these bizarre claims about Abramowicz’s role in this split, Kostecka said to Sport.pl, “I would be grateful for some evidence in this matter. Because it’s easy to throw passwords that don’t have coverage, leave understatements, rely on rumors, and not take responsibility for it yet, right? Because if it turns out that it was different, the responsibility will still be blurred.”

Joanna Sakowics-Kostecka further added, “If I speak unequivocally, I need evidence. And I don’t have such.” She even claimed that she never saw Daria Abramowicz “deciding on the course of training.” Kostecka claimed that although Abramowicz stays there during the training, that’s just to serve the balls. But what might have suddenly turned the fingers to the psychologist of all persons? Let’s take a tour back to 2020.

The then-19-year-old unseeded Iga had become the first player from Poland to win a grand slam singles title after beating No. 4 seed Sofia Kenin, 6-4 6-1 at the French Open that year. And what did she do after that? She credited not her coach, but Daria for it!

“It’s a long process. It helped me during the whole tournament especially after coming back from Covid break. We did great work the last few weeks to lower my expectations and come back to basics and just focus on having fun on court. She helped me a lot during that process but also she’s helping me develop as a person and as a player,” Iga had said to CNN Sport. Understandably, such an influence became open to interpretation. But indeed, their association has seen a lot.

Iga started working with Daria in 2019, the same year the Raszyn player began playing on the WTA Tour. Daria herself has been a competitive sailing athlete for 12 years. Before she started her collaboration with Iga, Abramowicz worked with the Polish national cycling and swimming teams, and even chess players, among others. Iga felt that her mind was hovering too much here and there in between points and games and she needed more focus during the matches. Since then, mental conditioning has been a part of her training.

Daria combines digital and analog methods to optimize Iga’s performance. Iga will have a -device on her ear, It measures electrical activity in her brain. They work on visualization. And Daria uses flashcards and puzzles to test Iga’s cognitive reaction time. That is sort of a workout for the brain. But that does not mean that it is all about technology. Rather, the training combines technology with a humane approach.

“We can have data in perfect order and still see a player who was playing great at the warm-up, suddenly choking when the match starts. We need to combine this. We can train this in a very modern way, helping ourselves with the technology, but also talking, digging deep, working on beliefs, on thoughts, refocusing, reaffirming, identifying emotions, using mindfulness to stay here and now, using mental training tools,” Daria had explained to Tennis Majors. The unique approach is indeed paying well to Iga, known to be emotional by nature.

At the French Open, Iga came back from the brink against Naomi Osaka, the same way she did against Aryna Sabalenka in Madrid. Not to forget, in the 2024 season, she became only the second woman to win Madrid, Rome, and the French Open in the same season, after Serena Williams in 2013. Interestingly, contrary to popular perception, Daria’s approach is not to control, but to regulate that emotion.

“The difference between controlling and regulating is that with control you try fight it but with regulating, you find healthy ways in appropriate moments to express your emotions. I was stunned where people asked Iga why did you cry after the Osaka match: it’s completely human because you need to regulate the emotions, and especially emotional people need to do this even more. Some people would scream, get enraged, would cry: it’s life. But it’s especially important with emotional people,” Daria’s detailing sounded logical.

Iga herself also can not deny the impact of Daria’s work with her. “I’ve been working with a psychologist for a few years now to help me with my game and my general well-being, concentration, work-life balance, so I feel like I’m in a good place now and I’m able to switch off mentally when I need it. But of course, it’s life and it’s constant work to stay on the right track and take care of yourself,” Iga had said to Tennis 365. It seems that presently Iga is in that shut-off and rejuvenate mode.

She was last seen on court since she lost to Jessica Pegula in the quarter-finals of the US Open on September 4. Rather, she has kind of shocked her fans with back-to-back pull outs from several tournaments citing fatigue. She withdrew from the Korea Open and the China Open. On September 26, the organizers of Toray Pan Pacific Open Tennis, set to take place in Tokyo from October 21-27, informed that she has withdrawn from the tournament.

There were expectations of her participation in the WTA 1000 Dongfeng Voyah – Wuhan Open, set to take place from October 7 to 13. Her manager had even said, “The next tournament that Iga has been registered for is the competition in Wuhan.” But she pulled out of that as well, hours after announcing the split from her coach. Amid this one more rumor ensued on October 5.

An X handle Sofa Sportowa created quite a ripple by announcing, “If you listen carefully here and there, you can hear that Iga Świątek’s long-time sparring partner Tomek Moczek has also left the team.” (as translated by the sport.pl). Meanwhile Dominik Senkowski, a journalist with Sport.pl, claimed that he had contacted Iga’s manager who has denied the claims. In the wake of this Sofa Sportowa deleted its previous post “in order not to spread disinformation.” Such speculation will likely continue until Swiatek announces her new coach.

Who will be Iga Swiatek’s new coach?

Joanna Sakowicz-Kostecka hinted that there are quite a few names that have come up to replace Wiktorowski in Swiatek’s team. Who are those? Kostecka also named the likes of Wim Fissette and Brad Gilbert among the frontrunners in this race. However, she feels Iga Swiatek, “doesn’t need a celebrity coach.” She also named a former Top 20 player, Anabel Median along with a few others like Andrea Petkovic and David Kotyza who are some of the names that have popped up to take up this big role. But what Iga has to say?

She has already announced that due to this important change on her coaching team, she has given herself a couple of weeks to build some cooperation with a new coach. Whom is she looking at to replace Wiktorowski, though? “I‘m in the middle of first talks with coaches from abroad (non-Polish) because I’m ready to take the next step in my career. I will let you know when I make a decision,” said Iga Swiatek. 

According to the Polish publication Sport.pl, Wim Fissette is leading the race to become the new coach of the Polish superstar. The 44-year-old Belgian coach recently ended his partnership with Naomi Osaka and he’s also looking for a new job. So, surely he’s going to be a real contender in this race to join the team of the world number one.

Fissette worked with Osaka from 2019 to the summer of 2022 and again in 2023 till September this year, when Osaka resumed her tennis career following the birth of her daughter, Shai. She has clinched two of her four Grand Slam titles with him. Apart from that, Fissette has also been a coach to Kim Clijsters, Simona Halep, Victoria Azarenka, Petra Kvitova, and Angelique Kerber. With Clijsters, Fissette won the US Open twice and the Australian Open once while with Kerber Wimbledon.

Amid all these, From November 2 to 9, the all-important WTA Finals are set to take place in Riyadh. Iga is supposed to defend the title she won last year in Cancun, Mexico. But after her withdrawal from Wuhan, things truly look in deep waters.