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Getting ‘bagelled’ in tennis is a humiliation.
To not win a single game suggests a mismatch, that one of the players is either out of their depth or having a terrible day on court.
Bagels — as sets that end 6-0 are known, because the zero looks like one — are seen as such an embarrassment largely because they are so rare. Twelve per cent of WTA Tour matches in 2023 included a bagel, according to data from Opta.
In just five years on tour however, world No 1 Iga Swiatek has shattered this orthodoxy.
During 2023, Swiatek won a bagel set in 29 per cent of her matches. That’s almost one in three. Her total of 23 bagels for the year was 15 higher than the players with the second-most on the women’s tour — Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, both with eight. Excluding matches Swiatek played in, the average for the WTA Tour last year was a bagel set in just 11.4 per cent of matches, according to Opta.
For Swiatek’s WTA career as a whole, an average of 40.6 per cent of her matches have included either a 6-0 set or a 6-1.
Swiatek is ruthless in running over opponents (Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
That’s a bagel or breadstick in close to half of her tour matches — you can see why the term “Iga’s Bakery” has entered tennis parlance.
Heading into the looming French Open, where Swiatek is a three-time champion and winner of the past two tournaments, she shows no signs of slowing down. In 2024, Swiatek has won the most bagel sets (eight) of anyone on the WTA Tour, ahead of Gauff (seven) and Aryna Sabalenka (five).
In her last two events — winning the title in Madrid and also in Rome — Swiatek has dished out three bagel sets. And The Athletic showed last month, her number of bagels per week while world No 1 stacks up against the greats — bettered only by 18-time Grand Slam champion Chris Evert.
But how does she do it? Using data from Hawk-Eye and speaking to the players who have to face her each week, including world No 3 Gauff, world No 4 and Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina, and Grand Slam winners including Victoria Azarenka and Marketa Vondrousova, here are the staple ingredients at Iga’s Bakery.
GO DEEPER
Iga Swiatek’s 100 weeks as world No 1: The streak, the slams, the bagels
To regularly win bagel sets, you have to be solid in all areas, particularly in returning well enough that every game is about who is the better tennis player, rather than the better server.
Swiatek is a master of this, and that’s why she is so good at running away with sets.
“She doesn’t have any holes in her game,” says world No 11 Daria Kasatkina, who has lost in straight sets the last five times she’s played Swiatek. These include a 6-3, 6-0 defeat in Doha, Qatar two years ago.
“In tennis in general, that’s very important. She returns very well, and though sometimes she can have some troubles on serve, generally she’s very stable in all aspects. She can switch from defence to attack very quickly. So for me, this is one of her weapons. And mentally, she is very strong.”