'Queen of Clay' in crisis: Iga Swiatek falls to Collins in latest 2025 setback

As a four-time French Open champion, Swiatek has been the 'Queen of Clay' for the last half a decade, but her form is unravelling ahead of her defence of the Roland Garros title later this month.

Swiatek won just two games against Coco Gauff in a brutal semi-final defeat in the Madrid Open last week, but she started her Italian Open defence in encouraging fashion with a dominant win.

Yet her vulnerabilities were once again exposed once again as America's Collins clinched a straight sets victory that will have a big impact on Swiatek's ranking.

After the match, the Pole admitted she needed to go back to the drawing board and rediscover her form.

"For sure I'm doing something wrong. So I need to just regroup and kind change some stuff. I had some advice from the team. I'll just try to do this," she said.

"I think I just wasn't there, present to, like, fight and to compete. I focused on mistakes. It's my mistake, and I'm not doing things right. So yeah, the focus is on the wrong things from my side and I'll try to change that."

Collins was delighted with the result, and felt she was able to apply some of the lessons from her past defeats to Swiatek.

"I played Iga so many times and the wins are in her favour," she said. "When you play that many close matches and play some of your best tennis but lose, you learn a lot. I feel like I applied that today.

Swiatek was defending 1,000 points from her win in Rome last year and she will now lose 935 points, which will drop her down to No 4 in the current live rankings.

This is significant as it could mean she faces world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-finals at Roland Garros, yet given her current form making it that far in the competition is far from a certainty.

Swiatek's form has collapsed in 2025 and the manner of defeats will be of particular concern to her. Her unforced error count rises the moment pressure is applied and opponents facing her on clay at Roland Garros will not be overwhelmed by the aura she used to bring onto the court.

The 23-year-old may now be asked once again about the impact of coach Wim Fissette, who does not appear to have had a positive impact on her game since joining 'Team Iga' at the start of 2025.

She was asked about Fissette by the media in Rome but insisted her experienced coach was not the problem.

READ MORE: Carlos Alcaraz makes winning comeback at Italian Open after injury layoff