‘My Body Feels Great’ - Iga Swiatek Extends Winning Streak In Miami - UBITENNIS

‘My Body Feels Great’ – Iga Swiatek Extends Winning Streak In Miami

The Pole is the first player to reach the semi-finals in both Indian Wells and Miami within the same year since Karolina Pliskova in 2017.

By Adam Addicott
5 Min Read
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Soon to be world No.1 Iga Swiatek has insisted that her body is holding up well after registering her 15th consecutive win on the Tour at the Miami Open.

The latest victory of the 20-year-old saw her beat two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova 6-3, 6-3, in the quarter-finals on Wednesday. Making it the fourth match in a row she has won in straight sets at the tournament. In her latest clash, the Pole won 76% of her first service points and didn’t face a single break point throughout the 77-minute clash.

Swiastek’s latest victory continues her unbeaten run on the Tour which started last month in the Middle East. For the first time in her career she won back-to-back titles after triumphing at the Doha Open, followed by Indian Wells. Now she is on the verge of achieving a hat-trick in Miami where she is bidding to join only a handful of players to ever achieve the sunshine double (winning Indian Wells and Miami within the same season).

The question is how much of an impact is this surge of success having on the tennis player? Swiatek didn’t train at all on Tuesday in order to rest but says she is in good hands with her team.

“For sure I think the fatigue hit me on the day when I played against Coco (Gauff) because I had really not so much time to actually recover,” she said.
“I think my team basically is managing my recovery pretty well because they know what’s best for me.’
“I didn’t even have to come to court yesterday (Tuesday), so that was a new kind of situation because usually we do, even for like 40 minutes on court. But this time it was different because they knew that I needed that.’
“I’m pretty happy that they are making the good decisions because I feel like I can trust them. Also my body feels great. I want to see where my limit is and also how it’s going to cope. I always felt pretty confident with my body.” She added.

It isn’t just the physical side that needs to be nurtured, it is Swiatek’s mental game too. In the past she has spoken extensively about how sports Psychologist Daria Abramowicz has played a significant role in her development on the Tour.

“My mental game is on point because I feel like I’m using this streak and it’s not like something that is pushing me down,” she explains. “I get tired and I have to work through that but it’s just being mentally tired. It’s not something that I haven’t had in my life. So I feel like I can even use the experience I had from last year.”

In Miami Swiatek has already achieved some rare milestones for a female player. She is the first player to drop less than 10 games en route to the quarter-finals since Kim Clijster did so back in 2010. As a result of her win over Kvitova, she has become just the fourth player to reach the semi-finals of four WTA 1000 events before their 21st birthday after Caroline Wozniacki, Victoria Azarenka and Jelena Ostapenko.

Swiatek will play America’s Jessica Pegula in the next round who has played just two full matches in Miami after her past two opponents withdrew due to injury or illness. The world No.21 is undoubtedly the fresher out of the two but her upcoming opponent doesn’t believe this will be a major factor in their clash.

“I had so much time on court the last couple of weeks that I think it doesn’t really matter how much I played,” Swiatek states.
“I think it’s going to be a great match anyways. As tennis players, we’re kind of used to every situation, having many hours on court but also having less sometimes. So we’ll see.”

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