After 20 minutes on the clay courts of Madrid, Iga Świątek threw her racket down on to her bag in frustration. She was experiencing something that she has inflicted on numerous opponents throughout her tennis career: the fear of humiliation.
A couple of minutes later, the fear became reality, as Madison Keys served up the first 6-0 set, or bagel, that Świątek has received in almost four years. Not since a match against Daria Kasatkina at Eastbourne in England in June 2021 had she lost a set 6-0.
In the end, the bagel from Keys will register as little more than a new statistic for commentators, because Świątek recovered to win the next two sets and take the match 0-6, 6-3, 6-2, gaining a measure of revenge for her defeat to the American in January’s Australian Open semifinals. The result gives her a 3-0 record on clay in matches in which she lost the first set 6-0.
It also offers another data point during what has been a strange Madrid Open for the defending champion. Świątek, who has won 10 clay-court titles including four French Opens, has looked more vulnerable than perhaps she ever has on her favorite surface while never getting into real jeopardy because she is so otherworldly on it when she finds her game. The prodigious topspin on her groundstrokes rears up and pulls players off the court, creating short replies which she can devour. Her defense is often impregnable. And when matches do get more complicated than she expected, she has a wellspring of winning experience to draw from.
Her matches in Madrid have been so in her control that she has determined their closeness for good and for bad. Against Alex Eala in her opening match, she was the dominant player in almost every point — to the extent that her errors accounted for 22 of the 35 points that Eala needed to take the opening set. The same thing happened against world No. 13 Diana Shnaider in the fourth round. After winning the first set 6-0, Świątek lost the second in a tiebreak, but of the 48 points Shnaider won in that set, 34 were unforced errors from the world No. 2’s racket.
Against Keys, Świątek was truly overrun for the first time. Having handled Linda Noskova’s aggression with relative comfort in between her matches against Eala and Shnaider, Świątek had no answer to Keys’ forehand and, though she said she was “feeling the ball,” sprayed groundstroke after groundstroke long. She repeatedly changed her racket and asked for restrings, looking for the higher tension that would give her more control. Her first serve faltered. The match was no longer on her racket.
After beating Eala, Świątek said of the changes she made: “I wanted to keep my margins and play a little bit more safe, to just play more balls in because I was making some unforced errors that weren’t really necessary.” That quote could just have easily come from her match with Keys.
As soon as the 6-0 set was over and the second set had begun, Świątek started easing the ball deep, particularly in backhand-to-backhand rallies. She dragged Keys wider using sharper angles. She moved the ball, rather than trying to blast it. Keys duly started producing more mistakes, and from there Świątek flowed.
She faces either Mirra Andreeva or Coco Gauff in the semifinals May 1.
‘Clay season is the time to judge Swiatek’s form in 2025 — or so it appeared’
Analysis from tennis writer Charlie Eccleshare
Clay season is the time to start making more of a judgement on Świątek’s form in 2025 — or so it appeared. It is her favorite part of the year, but also the part at which she is under the most pressure. Winning tournaments is par for her, so much so that if she were to win the Madrid Open, the Italian Open and the French Open, she wouldn’t even gain any points on world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka — because she won them all last year.
She has also hardly had a bad year by any rational tennis measure. Świątek has reached the quarterfinal or better in every tournament she’s entered. She was one point away from the Australian Open final. Of her seven losses in 2025, five have come either in a final or to the defending champion and two have come against Ostapenko, one of the only active players against whom Świątek has a negative head-t0-head. In many of those defeats, she came up against someone playing one of their best matches of the season, if not their career.
Against Keys in Madrid it initially looked like more of the same. The American has been visibly unshackled by her acceptance that tennis results need not define her, taking her to her first Grand Slam title in Australia and to a 23-4 record in 2025 prior to this encounter. Keys destroyed Świątek in the second set of their Australian Open semifinal, and the quicker conditions at Madrid’s altitude make it more hospitable to big-serving hitters like her, even more so than they do Świątek.
Iga Świątek has at times looked unsure of the best shot to play when up the court in Madrid.
All this means that a comeback win for Świątek should suggest that her form is in a very healthy place, but external factors and some elements of her game make it hard to reach that conclusion with any certainty. Her serve let her down against Keys in the first set, but even her movement, normally such a weapon, was slightly hesitant. Normally so decisive, Świątek was second-guessing herself, exemplified by the short forehand she sprayed long to fall down 5-0. In numerous matches in Madrid, she has hit shots straight to her opponent from seemingly unassailable positions with expanses of the court gaping, extending points that could have been over in just one strike.
Despite four wins in Madrid, frustration appears to be a watchword for Świątek right now. After beating Eala in her opening match, Świątek was so dissatisfied with her performance that she put in some extra practice before speaking to the media. Once in the interview room, Świątek referenced that after the Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, where she suffered a dispiriting loss to Ostapenko, “she had some other stuff going on”.
After beating Noskova, Świątek clarified that she’d had to go home to Poland between Stuttgart and Madrid, “for private reasons.”
“Then coming here being in a little bit of rush for sure wasn’t super comfortable,” she said. She has not looked super comfortable in most of her matches in Madrid, but nevertheless is into another semifinal for 2025.
(Photos: Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)