We didn’t know how she was going to react,» Maciej Ryszczuk built Iga Swiatek’s body to support her mind

 

It’s not an easy job to be responsible for the World No.1 and Roland-Garros queen’s body’s abilities. Maciej Ryszczuk was all smiles and relief when we caught up with him not even an hour after Iga Swiatek’s fourth title at Roland-Garros. In a tennis world where there’s always more work to be done, the physiotherapist, who is also a strength and conditioning coach, could at least enjoy the team’s success for a few hours before having to turn his brain to the grass season.

Last year, Swiatek got a thigh injury in Rome, and in Ryszczuk’s words, « it was risky even if it ended well. » But this year might still be the clay season that surprised him the most because everything was set for some tough challenges, and yet Swiatek got through. « To be honest, this year, we didn’t know how she was going to react. She played a lot of tournaments in a row, so I wasn’t so sure. All my data said it should be fine. We were thinking that if she could handle it mentally… Because it’s the same routine for ten weeks: it’s a lot, and it can get boring… But if she could accept, mentally, to push, then we knew her body was supposed to handle it, too. »

And it did. Swiatek has repeatedly praised Ryszczuk’s work and influence in her rise to the top of the game. The Pole is amongst the least injured players on Tour and showed quite the recovery skills and strength this year by going through the BJK Cup, Stuttgart, Madrid, Rome, and Roland-Garros. The funny thing for Ryszczuk is that it wasn’t a done deal four years ago when he started to work with her. 

“IT WAS CHAOS EVERYWHERE”

«In the beginning, it wasn’t so hard to think about the plan because she was dynamic, powerful, but there was a lot of chaos. It was chaos everywhere: she was everywhere with her movement, with her shots, and so on. I knew we had to put everything in frames and then work step by step to show her she could build slowly and put everything together. She likes Lego, so she was like Lego: it was a lot of great pieces, but we needed to put them together. When we started working together, it was Covid time so we had a little bit more time to build the base. Of course, she has good genetics, but it’s still a lot of work. We pushed her, and I told her when we started that she could be tired during the tournaments, but it’s fine because we’re going to build through that year for the future. We’re not in the short-term, it’s not a sprint, it’s really a long-term view. »