How will Iga Swiatek fare in the final months of 2024?

Since attaining the world number one ranking in April 2022, Iga Swiatek has held that spot for all but eight weeks. But by the end of 2023, Swiatek had regained her place at the top from Aryna Sabalenka.

Though Swiatek has remained No. 1 ever since, the picture looks different this fall. While Swiatek won her fourth Roland Garros title this year, Sabalenka has taken the two hard-court majors, adding the US Open to a successful Australian Open title defense.

Swiatek has significant points to defend from last season: title runs at the WTA 1000 stop in Beijing—which she’s opted to skip, citing “personal matters”—and the WTA Finals. And even if the points tally keeps Swiatek at number one on the computer, Sabalenka’s Slam success emphatically makes the case for her as the best player of 2024.

Most recently, Swiatek played some of the worst tennis of her career in the quarterfinals of the US Open, losing in straight sets to Jessica Pegula. This matches the pattern of her other 2024 Slam losses: in the third round of the Australia Open to world No. 50 Linda Noskova and No. 35 Yulia Putintseva at the same stage of Wimbledon.

Usually when the world’s best player is beaten—particularly at a major—the underdog either hits one fantastic shot after another or delicately unravels the favorite with a clever array of tactics. But that’s not been the case for Swiatek. Instead, the Pole committed errors with alarming frequency, the kind of sloppiness and emotional disarray unbecoming of a world No. 1. Simply put, that has been a disturbing sight.

“Well, I’m always trying to have lower expectations,” Swiatek said in New York, “because I know that any of us can win this tournament, and it’s not going to be easy. And also, I feel like when I have high expectations, I never perform well. So, I try to lower them. It’s not like it’s just low and that’s it, because it’s hard to have low expectations when everybody is expecting something from you, and you kind of know that you might have a game to play well.”