Iga Swiatek Joins Steffi Graf to Eclipse Serena Williams in Massive Record as World No. 1

Iga Swiatek has taken the tennis world by storm in the last 2 years. Three of her four women’s singles Grand Slam wins have come in the last 14 months. Winning back-to-back French Open titles and the US Open last year has made her create a legacy of her own.

Having recently won a title on home soil, i.e. the Polish Open, Swiatek seems all set to defend her title in New York City later this month as the top seed. With no player coming close to her, she has now achieved a record which has perhaps already taken her to all-time greatness and it includes Steffi Graf and Martina Hingis.

Iga Swiatek remains World No.1 for whopping 70 consecutive weeks in her first spell

Iga Swiatek has done what even the likes of Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova and Li Na have not been able to. After becoming World No.1 for the first time in April 2022, it has now been 70 weeks in a row that she has successfully held on to the position. Courtesy winning 4 titles this year already, this has been made possible.

Swiatek, co-incidentally, is the third player to achieve this feat in the Open Era of women’s singles tennis and the other two are also non-American players. Switzerland’s Martina Hingis was World No.1 for 80 consecutive weeks between the start of 1997 and September 1998. During that period, Hingis won the Australian Open 1997 and 1998 titles, Wimbledon 1997 and the US Open 1997 competitions respectively. However, her glorious run was ended by USA’s Lindsay Davenport, who defeated the Swiss star in the US Open 1998 final.

To break Hingis’ record is very much on the cards for Swiatek. However, the woman’s player with the most consecutive weeks in their first spell as the World No.1 is Germany’s Steffi Graf. Graf is widely regarded as the ‘GOAT of women’s tennis’ till date and one of the reasons is that she managed to stay at the top for a whopping 186 weeks at one shot, from the French Open 1993 to the French Open 1997.

Swiatek not good for women’s tennis? ESPN analyst slammed for controversial remark

ESPN analyst Jimmy Arias recently on a show claimed that for all her accomplishments, Iga Swiatek isn’t that great for women’s tennis. And his reasoning is extremely strange. He was quoted as saying –

“I don’t think she’s been great for women’s tennis. She wears her hat so low that you can’t even see her face or her eyes during a match.

“So you don’t get a connection as much as you could. I don’t mind her getting angry in some ways, but I want to see her personality.”

However, Arias has not found much backing for his statements with Nick Kyrgios being the biggest name in tennis to criticize him publicly for the same.