At the start of 2026, Iga Swiatek has a shot of claiming a rare milestone that hasn’t been achieved in women’s tennis for over a decade.
The Polish world No.2 heads into the Australian Open chasing after her maiden title, which will also earn her a career Grand Slam. Swiatek already has six major titles to her name, with the most recent of those occurring at Wimbledon earlier this year. She has also won the French Open four times (2020, 2022-2024) and the US Open once (2022).
In the Open Era, only six women have managed to achieve a career Grand Slam (winning every major event at least once), with the last being Maria Sharapova. Since 1988, the only other WTA players to achieve this were Steffi Graf and Serena Williams, who both did so multiple times. Graf remains the only person in history to claim a Golden Slam – winning every major and the Olympic title within the same year.
Swiatek says the prospect of joining this group of elite athletes is a ‘dream’ of hers, but she is not getting too carried away. At the Australian Open, she has a win-loss record of 22-7 with her best result being a semi-finalist twice, including this year.
“I’ve got to say that most of the amazing things that happen in my career happened when I wasn’t really expecting them and wasn’t really focusing on them,” Swiatek said during an interview with CLAY, also published by RG Media.
“I’m not that kind of person that imagines myself with the trophy or something. I don’t think it would give me a lot of discipline in terms of the work, so I think I’d rather focus on the process. Also, you don’t always have full influence on the results.”
Swiatek might have extra motivation to do well in Melbourne, considering how close she came to reaching the final in 2025. In the semi-finals, she failed to convert a match point against Madison Keys and ended up losing 8-10 in the final set tiebreaker.
“It’s something that I dream of and something that I want to happen one day but I’m not going to come to Melbourne and think about it every day,” she said of her career Slam bid.
“I know that there’s seven matches to win and the Grand Slams are two weeks, a lot can happen. So I’m really going to just take it step by step. Just focusing on the pre-season well is the key, and then I’ll see. But for sure, it would be a dream come true.
Swiatek isn’t the only player who has a shot of claiming a career slam at the tournament. Should Carlos Alcaraz lift the title, he would overtake Rafael Nadal to become the youngest man in history to achieve the milestone at the age of 22.
The Australian Open takes place between 18th January and 1st February.
