Iga Swiatek has made changes in her coaching staff after a stretch of disappointing results. She parted ways with coach Wim Fissette and ahead of the 2026 Charleston Open, she has hired Francisco Roig as her new coach.
The Polish star has had a poor start to the 2026 season, suffering multiple quarterfinal exits and a shock early loss at the Miami Open. Moreover, she doesn’t know where exactly to pinpoint the reason behind her losses.
In order to prepare for the clay season, Swaitek has been training at the Rafa Nadal Academy. She shared photos and updates showing herself practicing on clay courts with Rafael Nadal and his former coach, Roig, watching from behind.
Seeing this video, many fans accused Nadal of using Iga Swiatek to promote her training academy.
“Nadal using Iga for his PR,” one fan wrote.
“Rafael Nadal Academy like this seeing Iga walk through their doors… There’s definitely a real connection there, but this is invaluable promo and marketing for them and their brand,” another user remarked. “Their social media content creation team was immediately put on assignment.”
“Nadal and Iga spent literally five minutes training together, and now they’re editing all the videos to promote Nadal’s academy,” one person commented. “Iga didn’t need a clay-court guru to get back to competing; she just needed to regain her sanity and fire her manipulative and controlling psychologist.”
“They filmed a bit of a clip to promote the academy. So obviously, some Rafa fairy dust was needed,” a fan wrote.
“I mean it’s so obvious and those people think he might be involved in her team,” another commented. “He and that academy acted the same way with other players who came to visit or are simply part of it.”
With the clay season coming up, Swiatek wants to prepare in the best possible way and playing in the backyard of the 22-Grand Slam champion is one way of doing so. Nadal could share some of his advice, given he is a 14-time French Open champion and several of them came with Roig working as coach.
Iga Swiatek Overwhelmed After Expectations Not Achieved
Iga Swiatek is a top-five-ranked tennis star and is also a six-time Grand Slam champion. Four of those six Grand Slam titles have come at Roland Garros. However, leading up to this year’s French Open, Swiatek has been disappointing with her performances.
She broke down following her latest loss at the Miami Open. The performance expectations seem to be catching up to the Polish star.
“I’m super disappointed and upset with my performance,” Swiatek said. “I feel like I carry a lot of expectations and I can’t really fulfill them right now. I need to get rid of them because my game hasn’t been good enough to have any expectations. I think I am a bit confused, but there’s no way but forward and I’m just going to try hard to work back from that.”
It remains to be seen if Swiatek can get back in form before the French Open this year.
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