Andy Roddick has assessed that Iga Swiatek’s surprise loss at the 2026 US Open was a result of something other than tennis.
Swiatek suffered a 7-5, 6-3 defeat to Zheng Qinwen — a 121st-ranked qualifier and former world No 4 — in the fourth round at the hard-court major on Monday.
The six-time Grand Slam champion raced to a 5-0 lead in the first set, but she remarkably lost the next seven games as she failed to convert three set points on her serve.
The former world No 1 is currently ranked eighth — and she has dropped to ninth in the Live WTA Rankings — having endured a difficult season by her lofty standards.
The 25-year-old Pole did, though, arrive at the US Open in good form after she won the Canadian Open and reached the semi-finals in Cincinnati.
Speaking on his Served podcast, Roddick gave his verdict on Swiatek’s loss to Zheng.
“Iga kind of fell apart a little bit. She said it. She was like, ‘I just started missing balls’,” said the 2003 US Open winner.
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“You used to be able to bank on Iga. And listen, before I get into this criticism, I have an outsized amount of respect for what Iga has accomplished in her career. I am a fan of hers. I think she is criminally underreported on.
“And Iga, for the last two years, even with the Wimbledon title, the difference is that there have been inconsistencies, where she has patches in matches where the game goes off.
“And she looks at her box, and it’s a little panicked at times. And it is unpredictable, really. She’ll look great, she’ll look great, she’ll look great, and then all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Where did that come from?”
The former world No 1 continued: “Iga, we kind of have to figure that thing out, she had a good summer, obviously the win in Canada, but we judge her, she judges herself against her own shadow.
“She has six majors, dominant force in tennis, a multiple-time year-end number one. She’s probably going to be doing some searching.
“And it wasn’t the tennis going into this match. It wasn’t tennis-based. She’s been playing well for five weeks now. So, it is something else.
“But credit to Qinwen, good to see her back. You could see how much joy she had in that moment, going through qualies. She’s here for the real deal.”
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