LONDON — World No. 1 Iga Swiatek faltered again on Saturday, losing 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 to Yulia Putintseva in the third round at Wimbledon.
Swiatek has won five Grand Slam titles, four of which came on the clay courts of the French Open (most recently last month) and one on the hard courts of the U.S. Open.
The 23-year-old Polish player won junior trophies as a teenager but the grass at the All England Club has always been her biggest problem at major tournaments as a professional.
Swiatek has only reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon once before, last year, when she was eliminated at that stage.
She entered Saturday on the back of a 21-match clay-court winning streak and decided to forgo the only grass-court warm-up match on her pre-Wimbledon schedule.
The result was also unexpected, as Swiatek had not only won each of her previous four meetings with Putintseva, who is ranked 35th in the world, but also won every set they played.
But Swiatek hardly looked like someone who has topped the WTA rankings almost every week since April 2022 and is expected to maintain her spot no matter what happens in the remainder of Wimbledon.
She made a lot of mistakes, especially in the final two sets, when Putintseva made no attempt to stop the ball, instead happy to let Swiatek help her.
Putintseva won 16 of the first 19 points in the deciding set to take a 4-0 lead and then needed just two winners.
That’s because all of her remaining 14 points came thanks to unforced errors (7) or forced errors (7) with Swiatek’s racquet.
After one miss in the net, Swiatek muttered to herself and appeared as upset as she usually is during the match.
