Iga Swiatek enters this year’s Roland Garros with a lot of pressure. The 23-year-old clay-court master now finds herself in a precarious position due to a string of underwhelming results and a shift in the WTA rankings.
At the start of the 2025 clay-court season, Swiatek faced a challenge: defending titles at all three big clay events—Madrid, Rome, and soon, Roland Garros. However, she was unable to defend her trophies in either Madrid or Rome this spring, losing valuable ranking points in the process. Those two tournaments alone had earned her 2,000 points last year, and their loss has now pushed her down from No. 2 to No. 5 in the WTA rankings, with 5,838 points—just outside the all-important top four. This is Swiatek’s first time outside the Top 4 since the week of February 21, 2022.
That fifth-place ranking may seem minor, but it has major implications for the Roland Garros draw. Being seeded in the top two guarantees that a player won’t face the No. 1 seed until the final, which is a major advantage. The top four seeds are strategically placed in the bracket to avoid each other until the semifinals, while a fifth seed risks a much earlier clash with the top players. Now seeded fifth in Paris, Swiatek could face any of the top four players as early as the…
