How Swiatek’s sports psychologist honed her mental game

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WTA Insider speaks with sports psychologist Daria Abramowicz about the perils of professional tennis and the importance of training the mind as much as the body.

Daria Abramowicz can think of no better research lab for sports psychology than the high-stakes, high-stress world of Grand Slam tennis. The 33-year-old Warsaw native has served as Polish phenom Iga Swiatek’s sports psychologist for nearly two years, traveling with Swiatek’s team to big events to help address the challenges of playing on the tour.

The 19-year-old has been an unstoppable force in Paris, booking a spot in her first Slam final in just her second main draw appearance at Roland Garros. Unseeded and ranked No.54, Swiatek paved her own way over the fortnight, defeating last year’s finalist Marketa Vondrousova in the first, playing pitch-perfect tennis to oust top seed Simona Halep in a 6-1, 6-2 masterclass, in the Round of 16, and showing no signs of nerves or pressure as she played as the clear favorite to defeat Martina Trevisan in the quarterfinals and Nadia Podoroska in the semifinals. Swiatek is now the first Polish woman to make the Roland Garros in the Open and just the second all-time, following Jadwiga Jedrzejowska, who was a runner-up in 1939.

It is rare to see a young athlete not only employ a full-time sports psychologist but to also speak so openly about her struggles and successes in handling the psychological strains of being a professional athlete.

“I just believe that mental toughness is probably the most important thing in tennis right now because everybody can play on the highest level,” Swiatek told reporters after her fourth-round win. “But the ones that are tough and that can handle the pressure are the biggest ones.

“She just made me smarter. I know more about sports and I know more about psychology and I can understand my own feelings and I can say them out loud.”

“So I always wanted to develop in that way. I was working with some other psychologists, two probably when I was younger. But Daria was the best I could get because she just understands me very well and she knows me very well and she can kind of read my mind, which is weird.

“She was a sailor so she has experience in sports and she was a coach so she has the full package. She just made me smarter. I know more about sports and I know more about psychology and I can understand my own feelings and I can say them out loud.

“She just makes my confidence level higher.”

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Serving Is Mental. So Stop Thinking So Much.

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Some of the best players in the world have struggled with one of the most basic shots in tennis at the French Open.

PARIS — Raffaella Reggi rose to 13th in the world in women’s tennis in the late 1980s despite a serve so balky she once recorded 28 double faults in a match in Rome. With the shrill voices of fans pleading with her to use an underhand motion still ringing in her ears, Reggi said she walked into the press room afterward and professed, “I have no idea how to serve.”

Watching a player repeatedly start points by hitting balls into the net or, in the German Alexander Zverev’s case, beyond the baseline, can be excruciating.

“I had some flashbacks,” Reggi said of Zverev’s double-fault-filled performance in his United States Open final defeat to Dominic Thiem.

It’s akin to actors forgetting their lines during a soliloquy. You sit there, helpless to assist, willing them to get back in the flow. If all the court’s a stage, double faults are a tennis player’s inner heckler lashing out.

Mary Carillo, the NBC analyst and former French Open doubles champion, said, “It’s almost always the same culprit: nerves.”

How the anxiety seeps into the technical execution varies. It can be a wandering ball toss that throws off one’s rhythm or a tightening of the limbs that makes it harder to bend the knees and execute the natural arm swing. The challenge for those struggling with their serves, Carillo said, is to fight the instinct to bend the ball into the box slowly and carefully and instead accelerate their racket head speed.

“More action at the point of contact gives more margin, not less,” she said.

The serve is the only stroke in the sport where the player exercises complete control of the moment. It is a stand-alone action, so when the moment goes awry, there is stand-alone accountability.

The 23-time major singles champion Serena Williams, who has one of the most potent serves in the game, said that on those rare occasions when her best weapon is misfiring, “My brain is like: ‘Oh, my God! I never miss this!’”

The embarrassment of being a professional unable to execute this elemental shot faithfully can be acute.

“I mean, in practice I make the serves,” said an exasperated Coco Gauff, who opened the French Open stalking the baseline between service points yelling, “Focus!” as she piled up 12 double faults in a victory against Johanna Konta.

In the next round, Gauff had 19 in a three-set loss to Martina Trevisan of Italy. The 16-year-old Gauff has averaged almost 15 doubles in her last four matches.

“It’s just confidence, just a mind thing,” said Gauff, who added: “I don’t really think it’s a technical thing. I mean, we talk to a lot of people. Sometimes I mess up and hit a bad toss. I mean, when I’m out there on the court, I know I double-fault a lot, but I try not to think of it.”

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Whisperer Serving Tip: Lighten up on your grip to accelerate the racket head. Most players ‘choke the chicken under stress’ particularly on serve.

Are Underhand Serves Underhanded? Tennis Is Opening Up to the Crafty Tactic

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Players concede that the serve can be a good tactic against players who stand far, far back from the baseline. And they know when opponents are trying to show them up.

Neither the pioneer nor the present-day popularizer of the underhand serve has been in Paris this year during the French Open.

Michael Chang, who won the tournament with a clutch use of the serve in 1989, is back in the United States, spending time with his wife, Amber, and their three young children. Nick Kyrgios is back in Australia, spending time on social media as a freelance tennis critic, which should make for some testy conversations with his peers when he finally does return to the circuit in person.

But Chang’s and Kyrgios’s legacy has been on frequent display in the first week of the Grand Slam tournament.

Underhand serves, once broadly considered underhanded in the sport, have been popping up in the autumnal gloom like mushrooms in the French countryside.

Peak season may have been Wednesday. In the stretch of a couple of hours, you could watch Alexander Bublik hold serve with an underhander (it seems time for a punchy, one-word term), see Sara Errani save a match point with one and watch Mackenzie McDonald save nothing at all with a floating, sacrificial offering of an underhander that the 12-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal pounced on for a return winner en route to a 6-0, 6-1, 6-3 victory.

“If he’s winning, it’s a good tactic; if he’s losing, it’s a bad tactic,” Nadal said. He added that, for example, it was “not a good tactic” for Mackenzie. For Bublik, he said, “if that works,” it was “a good tactic.”

Unfortunately for Bublik, it did not work often enough. He lost his second-round match to Lorenzo Sonego in a duel that was also brimming with other tennis exotica, like serve-and-volley tactics and tweeners.

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