AS the WTA Tour comes to a close for the 2020 season, Draft Central is counting down the top five standout performers across a severely disrupted year who have stepped up to a new level since the Tour’s return. Our top improver for season 2020 is Polish teenager Iga Swiatek, who not only won her maiden title this year, but did so during her maiden Grand Slam final, defeating number five on the countdown, Sofia Kenin.

There is no doubt the 19-year-old has burst onto the scene over the past year, rising from 174th at the beginning on 2019 and settling just outside the top 50 mark by the end of the year. But a combination of a Round of 16 berth at the 2020 Australian Open and the delay in proceedings due to the COVID-19 pandemic allowed Swiatek time to elevate her game, proving to be a huge threat when she is on song, and knocking out some excellent players on her rise up the rankings. 

Swiatek made it all the way to the Round of 16 at her maiden Roland Garros in 2019 and surpassed that achievement this time around, going all the way and defeating Kenin to solidify herself as one to watch on the tour. Ranking 54th prior to the tournament, Swiatek now sits comfortably within the top 20 in at 17th in the world, with her remarkable rise to the top only made more significant when you factor in that she has not won any Tour level titles bar the grand slam. 

With just the one prior WTA Tour final behind her prior to the 2020 Roland Garros, Swiatek defied all odds taking on fourth seed Kenin, but swept away the American in straight sets and now boasts the records of not just being the youngest victor since Monica Seles in 1992, but also the first Polish player to win a Grand Slam singles title. 

Swiatek is now the highest-ranked teenager on the tour, with just five losses to her name for a 76.2 per cent winning rate in 2020 – a huge 22 per cent leap from her 53.6 per cent rate in 2019 when she won 15 matches from 28 attempts. While she has played seven less matches this year, as is the nature of an interrupted season, Swiatek has elevated her consistency to hold serve close to 70 per cent of the time, and dropped her double fault rate to prove more effective on serve. Swiatek has dropped just 12 sets this year – seven since the return of the Tour in August – and has proved to be a real confidence player, sweeping opponents aside once she has the upper hand with a 6-1 set win in all bar one of her Roland Garros matches this year, consolidating her final three wins with that second set scoreline.

While still young, Swiatek has proven more than capable of stepping up time and again, with her three straight wins over top 20 players during the Roland Garros testament to that, downing world number two Simona Halep in the Round of 16 as well as then-world number 19 Marketa Vondrousova (now 20th) and Kenin in the final, and impressively not dropping a set as she did so. The real question for Swiatek now is whether she can maintain her excellent form once some of top players return to the Tour, with her great form coming against an incomplete playing field. 

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WTA Countdown: 2020 Top 5 Improvers – #5 Sofia Kenin // #4 Jennifer Brady // #3 Ons Jabeur // #2 Victoria Azarenka