Iga Swiatek enters the record books for an unwanted reason, registers earliest loss for top seed in modern Australian Open history

World No. 1 Iga Swiatek's loss to Czech teenager Linda Noskova in the third round of the Australian Open on Saturday (January 20) has earned her place in the record books for an unenviable reason.

Swiatek's was the earliest loss for a World No. 1 player at the Australian Open since 1979. This is also the first time since the tournament became a 128-player draw in 1988 that the top seed has not made it to the fourth round.

Incidentally, the four-time Grand Slam champion is into her 86th week as the top-ranked player. She is now tenth on the all-time list of players who have spent the most number of weeks at No. 1, just behind Lindsay Davenport (98 weeks).

Steffi Graf tops the list, having spent 377 weeks in total atop the rankings. She is followed by Martina Navratilova (332 weeks), Serena Williams (319 weeks), Chris Evert (260 weeks), Martina Hingis (209 weeks), Monica Seles (178 weeks), Ashleigh Barty (121 weeks), Justine Henin (117 weeks) and Lindsay Davenport.

Swiatek, who has won the French Open thrice (2020, 2022 and 2023) and US Open in 2022, had a perfect record in singles at the United Cup tournament that was played just ahead of the Australian Open.

The Pole stands at the seventh place in terms of number of matches played as a No. 1 player. She had lost only 16 matches as the top-ranked player before her shock defeat to Noskova.

Iga Swiatek became the top ranked player for the first time in April 2022. She collected 11,000 ranking points that year, the second highest ranking points in WTA history after Serena Williams in 2013.

The 22-year-old lost her top ranking after her fourth round loss to Latvia's Jelena Ostapenko at the US Open 2023. But she claimed it again and became the year-end No. 1 for the second season in a row by winning the WTA Finals.

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Iga Swiatek on her Australian Open loss - "I felt like I had everything under control until Linda Noskova broke me"

Iga Swiatek plays at the Australian Open 2024

Iga Swiatek reflected on her loss at the third round of the Australian Open, stating that she had things under control till she was broken by Linda Noskova. She admitted that failing to break Noskova, despite having chances in the second set, also affected the outcome.

"I felt like I had everything under control until she broke me in the second set. But, yeah, well, I had couple of chances to break her in second set and I didn't use them. So that's a shame," the Pole told the media.

Swiatek added that she was rushing her shots and not playing her natural game. She believes she was also not following her intuition properly.

"But when she broke me, she was kind of proactive. I wanted to do that as well later in the next games. Sometimes, yeah, I was rushing it. I just wasn't playing kind of with my intuition and naturally," she said.