Iga Swiatek suffers big rankings collapse in alternative tennis list
Iga Swiatek’s challenging season turn another turn for the worse as she was forced to pull out of the Madrid Open due to illness, with the tears she shed as she left the court highlighting the despair she felt.
The four-time French Open champion has set incredibly high standards on clay courts during the course of her career and she sets herself high expectations during this phase of the tennis season.
Yet this version of Swiatek lacks the fear factor she used to take onto court with her and that loss of aura has been reflected in the updated UTR Ratings.
While the rolling 52-week WTA Rankings are gauge players use to judge their place in the sport, UTR list is calculated using a different method, with current form and the ranking of your opponent taken into account when the final analysis is made.
The method for calculating the UTR ratings differs greatly, as it is designed to reflect current form and recent results.
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Victories against higher-ranked players are worth more in the UTR list than the official ATP or WTA ranking and the UTR rankings are based on the current form from the last few weeks, with the system created to promote fair and competitive play across the tennis world.
All players, regardless of age, gender, geography, or skill level, are rated on the same scale between 1.00 and 16.50 based on actual match results.
The UTR rankings have been endorsed by 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic, who has suggested they may offer a more accurate reflection of the current form in the game and that may be why Swiatek is on the slide after her recent downturn in fortunes.
Swiatek is at No 4 in the WTA Rankings, but she is down to No 8 in the UTR list and Coco Gauff is another player on the slide.
Reigning French Open champion Gauff is at No 3 in the WTA Rankings, but she is down at No 9 in the UTR list.
Swiatek left Manolo Santana Stadium in tears after she retired when trailing 6-7(4), 6-2, 0-3 against world No 34 Ann Li in the third round in Madrid on Saturday and she admitted sickness was the issue.
“I’ve been feeling awful for the last two days. I think I have some kind of virus: I know you all want answers, but I’d mainly be careful,” she stated.
“Some hours I’ve been fine, but other times I’ve been feeling really bad. I’ve heard there’s something going around in the locker room, a virus that’s out there somewhere.
“I know I’ll be fine in a couple of days, but today I felt like I had zero energy, zero stability.
“I’ve been feeling really bad physically; yesterday was even worse. I thought maybe things would be better today, and maybe they were, but not enough to play that much.
“I knew it was going to be tough, but I still wanted to try, because I’ve been sick a couple of times in my career and I was able to win most of my matches.
“It depended on how bad I was going to feel, and this time it was quite a bit worse than the previous times.”
There have been some suggestions that food poisoning has been an issue affecting players in Madrid, with a few top stars confirming they have been suffering from a sickness bug.
Updated UTR Ratings
1. Aryna Sabalenka
2. Elena Rybakina
3. Jessica Pegula
4. Elina Svitolina
5. Karolina Muchova
6. Victoria Mboko
7. Marta Kostyuk
8. Iga Swiatek
9. Coco Gauff
10. Amanda Anisimova
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