Iga Swiatek crashes out of China Open after error-strewn performance

Swiatek was in good form heading to Beijing after she won the Korea Open title last week, but she had no answer to Navarro in what was a bizarre performance from the Wimbledon champion.

The alarming statistic confirming Swiatek threw in a staggering 70 unforced errors in her match against Navarro left plenty of questions and this win may have a lasting impact, with the tactics used by the victor certain to have been noted in the locker room.

Navarro had won just five games in her two previous meetings with Swiatek, but she sealed a 6-4, 4-6, 6-0 win by taking a bold approach that saw her step up the court to return the Swiatek serve.

It reaped huge rewards as the six-time Grand Slam champion looked rushed and unsettled as she slumped to a defeat that will be a huge blow to her hopes of catching Aryna Sabalenka and topping the WTA Rankings.

She is now due to play in another WTA 1000 event in Wuhan next week, but there must be questions over whether she will look to take a break after again voicing her concern over the tennis schedule.

"Unfortunately, I think the Asian Swing is the hardest part because you feel like the season is going to finish soon, but you still need to push," said Swiatek prior to her defeat against Navarro.

"For me, like, I don't know yet how my career is going to look like in a couple of years. Maybe I will have to choose some tournaments and skip them, even though they are mandatory. Yeah, like WTA with all these mandatory rules, they made this pretty crazy for us.

"I don't think any top player will actually be able to achieve this, for example, playing the six 500 tournaments. It's just impossible to squeeze it in the schedule.

"I think we have to be smart about it, not really care about the rules and just think what's healthy for us. Yeah, it's tough.

"The only thing I can do now, when I decided I'm going to play all these mandatory tournaments, is to just take care of my body, take care of the recovery. I have a good team around me also that is helping me with that. I'm experienced enough to know kind of what to do. So physically, I am good.

"There are a lot of injuries. I think it is because the season is too long and too intense."

Several players have opted to take a break and Sabalenka skipped this week's event in Beijing, citing an injury following her US Open win last month.

Now we wait to see what Swiatek decides to do next, with this error-strewn performance suggesting she is not operating at full level in a season when her inconsistency has been a recurring theme.

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