Iga Swiatek’s staggering top-10 win feat only bettered by two tennis icons since 1990
With six Grand Slam titles and 125 weeks at world No 1 already to her name, Iga Swiatek’s status as the leading WTA player of her era is more than secured.
Victory in Monday’s Cincinnati Open final over Jasmine Paolini cemented the Pole’s place as the in-form player on the WTA Tour right now, just weeks after her resurgent run to the Wimbledon title.
Her final against two-time Grand Slam finalist Paolini, who was ranked ninth at the time, was the 75th match Swiatek has played against a top-10 opponent.
And, her record in such matches cements her place among some of the game’s all-time greats.
Staggering top-10 win record
Swiatek’s first match against a top-10 opponent came back in 2019, when she won just one game against Simona Halep at the French Open.
However, in the six years since then, the world No 2 has compiled a staggering record against top-10 opponents.
By beating Paolini in the Cincinnati final, the 24-year-old has now won 52 of her 75 matches versus top-10 players, an astonishing win rate of 69.33% across her career to date.
The peak of Swiatek’s success against top-10 players came in 2022, when she amassed a 15-2 record for the season, with an 8-4 record versus such opponents in 2025 to date.
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Her 52-23 record in her first 75 top matches is impressive, and becomes even more impressive when you look at the only players to better that in recent decades.
In the past 35 years (since 1990), only Steffi Graf and Monica Seles have achieved a better record than Swiatek in their first 75 matches against top-10 opponents.
Graf, a 22-time Grand Slam singles champion, had a narrowly better record than the Pole, with a 53-22 record across her first 75 matches against top-10 foes post-1990, a win rate of 70.66%.
Out in front is nine-time major champion Seles, who held an astonishing 61-14 record in her first 75 matches against top-10 opposition post-1990, an 81.33% win rate.
It should be remembered that Seles and Graf, particularly the latter, had both played a significant number of top-10 matches before the start of the 1990 season.
However, there can be no denying that Swiatek’s record against elite-tier opposition stands out as one of the key factors in her success.
Finals record
Swiatek’s overall record against top-10 opponents was not the only impressive statistic to emerge from her Cincinnati triumph.
The Pole has also increased her record against top-10 players in finals, alongside maintaining her impressive run in WTA finals as a whole.
Swiatek has contested 29 WTA Tour-level finals and has a 24-5 record across her career in such matches, an 82.76% win rate.
She has faced top-10 opponents in 17 of her 29 tour-level finals, and has so far only tasted defeat twice.
The world No 2 was beaten by Aryna Sabalenka in the 2023 Madrid Open final, before a loss to Jessica Pegula at the Bad Homburg Open back in June.
Outside of those two losses, Swiatek has won all 15 of her other tour-level finals against top-10 opponents, with a 15-2 level record overall.
Her 88.24% record against top-10 players is the highest of any woman who has contested 5+ tour-level finals since 1990, a milestone even the likes of Seles and Graf can’t match.
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