"Well, I mean, we're not in a therapy session" - Iga Swiatek still trying to put finger on poor form after Roland Garros exit

Iga Swiatek tried to figure out what went wrong in a very damaging 7-5, 6-1 loss in the French Open to Marta Kostyuk in the last-16.

She struggled hugely on serve, wining just 45% of first serve and 35% of second serve points which allowed Kostyuk to impressively streak clear. The Ukrainian is still unbeaten on clay in 2026, with Swiatek in contrast just one semi-final on what is supposed to be her favourite surface.

"For sure it wasn't a good day at the office," she told the press. "There were many things I could have managed a bit better, but it was super tough today for me to keep the level that I wanted to. Obviously, at this stage, any opponent in the fourth round has already played a couple of matches and will use the opportunity, so congratulations to Marta."

It is the first time since 2019 that Swiatek has failed to get past the fourth round stage in this tournament. She has grown a lot as a player, winning four titles at Roland Garros on the way, but that dreaded feeling of losing still looms strong.

"I feel like I care even more, maybe. But no, I always cared," she said. "Sometimes you have losses that are hard to let go because you know it wasn't your day, or you know that your opponent was better. I guess it depends on the reason why you lose. Today, obviously, it wasn't nice after the match because I know that I can perform better, but today I couldn't. I did everything to handle it, but it was tough, and there's nothing I can do now except learn from it, keep working and try to do better next time."

She tried to put her finger on what was the cause of the defeat, whether it was similar to the other ones she has experienced in recent times. "Well, for sure I lost control of the match, and there was no way for me to come back because I felt worse and worse," she commented.

"This is different from losing to Elina Svitolina in Rome or to Mirra Andreeva in Stuttgart. So, yeah, it's not great. I know that I lost because I was tense and my body couldn't really do the proper things. But it's not the first time as well, so I just need to work on it.

"Honestly, for me, maybe the toughest loss is when you have the match in your hands, but you make stupid decisions, let it go, and your opponent suddenly comes back. It's also bad when your tennis is just terrible and you know you're worse than the player you're facing. But I feel like today I lost because Marta used the opportunity and I was super tense. I feel like I can work on that at least. There's a reason and maybe there's a solution. Maybe it's not going to take one week or one month. Maybe it's going to take a season or something. But I need to believe that I can work through this and not be thrown off so quickly."

The 25-year-old became very tense on court. The former champion who regularly competes for the biggest prizes is not playing her best stuff and that is something that she is trying to desperately work out from a mental perspective.

"Well, I mean, we're not in a therapy session, so I'm going to keep it simple," she stated. "Obviously, there could be many reasons, but I'd rather work on it on my own. It is a bit harder for me to handle stress than it was last year. Especially, I feel like the peak of that was in the US this year.

"Today I felt off, and I made mistakes that I didn't want to make. I wanted to play safe, but the ball was flying everywhere. Suddenly those feelings came back and I tried to work on it through my internal dialogue, but it was tough today. It all kind of went drastically downhill and I played worse and worse."

Swiatek did not hold her serve past the seventh game in the match, summing up her poor form on court as Kostyuk pounced. "I still don't position my elbow exactly how I want to. So technically, when we have more time to practise, I want to repeat, repeat, repeat it a hundred times and make it better. For sure, though, I think the serve is the most complicated shot. So if something is going to fall apart a bit under pressure, I feel like it's the serve first, then movement, and then just mishitting everything. So, yeah, I guess that happened today."

The conditions also played their part, although the Pole was adamant that it was not the reason for her defeat. "Well, I strung the racquets at a lower tension, but I still felt like the ball was flying quite long.

"It's hard to say, honestly. I probably feel like maybe my hand was slower—not because of the temperature, but because of how I felt today—and that's why I wasn't putting the balls in. Maybe I went too low with the tension. Now it's hard to check. It's impossible to know. Honestly, if you feel good and you play well, you can probably win with any racquet. So it's hard for me to say. But for sure that's not why I lost or anything."

Swiatek has to now think about her Wimbledon title defence with 2000 points on the line. She could stumble a few places in the rankings if she is not careful. However, she has not yet thought about the grass swing.

"I don't know. I haven't thought about grass at all. Hard to say. It was a great year last year, but also my previous results were not good. I mean, they were good, but it depends on how you look at it. So I'm probably going to take it easy, try to be patient and be humble. I don't know how it's going to be. I'm not a wizard."

While this early exit does give her more time to get used to the new surface and transition smoother, there is no benefit from this last-16 loss. "There's no bonus from being out of the tournament," she summed up. "For sure, first rest and then practise. But I'm not planning anything now. I don't think the team is planning yet either, so we'll see. I also have some obligations that I always do after Roland-Garros, and then I'll probably go somewhere other than Poland to practise on grass because it's hard to practise on grass in Poland."