PARIS – It has been a good week to be Iga Świątek.The four-time French Open champion is back on her beloved red clay. The sun has been shining. The scorching heat at Roland Garros has made the topspin on her forehand even more potent than usual.The fates have been on her side, too, in cahoots with the weather. She avoided a bear trap of a third-round matchup against her personal Achilles heel, Jelena Ostapenko, after the Latvian lost to Świątek’s compatriot Magda Linette.Later that same day, the draw opened further when No. 2 seed Elena Rybakina was upset by Yulia Starodubtseva in the second round, meaning the high seed in Rybakina’s quarter of the draw – Świątek’s hypothetical semifinal opponent – is No. 8 Mirra Andreeva.Most importantly, after feeling lost in the tennis wilderness for a spell earlier this year, Świątek is feeling clear-headed and balanced enough to take advantage of whatever unfolds in front of her.She’s through to the fourth round of her first Grand Slam tournament with her new coach of two months, Francisco Roig. There, she faces No. 15 seed Marta Kostyuk, against whom she has a 3-0 record.“I feel like the decision-making has been better, and that’s an improvement,” Świątek said Friday. “I mean, after how I played in the States, honestly, anything better is positive.”Across two WTA 1000 tournaments, the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, Calif. and the Miami Open, Świątek went on a brief, impactful run. She lost the world No. 2 ranking to Rybakina after exiting Indian Wells in the quarterfinals. Then, in Florida, she suffered a shocking second-round loss to Linette, her countrywoman, after receiving a first-round bye.Then the world No. 50, Linette broke Świątek’s streak of 73 opening-match wins, which dated back to 2021.It proved a tipping point for Świątek, who said after that tennis felt “complicated” in her head, a flashing red warning sign for a player whose best victories had always featured a fluid balance of offense and defense. Instead of adapting during matches, she’d freeze, and, more often than not, default to overhitting.Swiatek appeared caught between two styles. There was the direct, simple, first-strike tennis preached by Tomasz Wiktorowski, with whom Świątek won four of her Grand Slam titles. And there was the more patient, variety-laced style that she first played when she burst onto the scene in 2020 by winning this tournament, and which she had started to reintroduce with the support of coach Wim Fisette, who replaced Wiktorowski toward the end of the 2024 season.Świątek reached the 2025 Australian Open semifinals and won Wimbledon that summer, but her successes were always intermixed with similar losses. Her serve didn’t earn her free points, so she had to grind through almost every point as a rally. Pressure would build on her baseline game, errors would inevitably arrive, and the cycle would spiral Świątek into lopsided scorelines in deciding sets.