American tennis legend draws a parallel between the ‘Queen of Clay’ with the ‘Swiss Maestro’ in one aspect of her game. Iga Swiatek recently saved three match points to beat Aryna Sabalenka by 7-5,4-6,7-6(7) in a marathon 3 hours and 11 minutes long match at the finals of the Madrid Open. With this victory, the world number one has not only clinched her first Mutua Madrid Open title but she has also created a record of winning 8 straight finals in a row. What makes her so consistent at the bigger matches and win so many titles at the age of 22?

Andy Roddick recently gave a reply to this question during a conversation with Steve Weissman and Chanda Rubin at the Tennis Channel Live Podcast. Roddick said, “Listen, she has that Federer thing that once she gets ahead, it’s kind of like a runaway train, right? But also she has 20 titles in that stat and she’s not hiding any weak titles. 13 of these are either Slams or Masters 1000 titles.” The 41-year-old tennis legend then went on to heap praise on the fitness levels shown by both tennis stars in the finals of the Madrid.

Except for one occasion, Roddick has always been a big admirer of Iga Swiatek. A few months ago, he spoke about her chances to make a successful run at the clay court season this year. He asserted that Swiatek is “1A and 1B as far as favourites go” for clay-court tournaments, including the 2024 French Open. Andy Roddick strongly opined that the players will need “to put together a massive clay-court season to even enter the conversation” with the ‘Queen of Clay’ on this surface.

Iga Swiatek has won four Grand Slam titles so far in her career. Astonishingly, three out of her four major triumphs have come at the French Open. In fact, just to remind the fans, Iga Swiatek entered the Top 10 of the WTA rankings for the first time in 2021 after winning the Italian Open. She has won the Italian Open title twice in her career. It’ll be interesting to see if she can grab her third this year. In March this year, Andy Roddick surprisingly also drew a parallel between Iga Swiatek and Rafael Nadal.

“It feels like the Rafa thing” – Andy Roddick shares his thoughts on Iga Swiatek

During a conversation at the ‘Served with Andy Roddick’ podcast, the American tennis legend said Iga Swiatek can excel on slow surfaces. Expectedly the one at the French Open just like Rafael Nadal. “She [Iga Swiatek] can struggle, she’s not played great in four out of the last five Slams. It feels like the Rafa [Nadal] thing where even if she struggles at Majors, on a slow surface like Indian Wells. On a slow surface like Roland Garros, she’s gonna continue to win. You feel like it’s her versus the field at worse at Roland Garros,” Roddick.

After her recent win over Sabalenka in Madrid, Iga Swiatek reflected on her mindset during such a highly competitive game stating that she drew inspiration from the ‘King of Clay’. Iga Swiatek considers Rafael Nadal as his tennis idol. She recently recalled an instance from one of Rafael Nadal’s matches at the 2022 AO – “One thing that came through my mind was that I think Rafa had a couple of matches like that. I remember exactly when he was playing (Daniil) Medvedev in Australia (Open final in 2022) and it clicked for him. He also struggled for a bit of time, he was tense and I think stressed. That kind of gave me hope that maybe it will click, even after two hours.”

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