Iga Swiatek believes she will handle the pressure of being world No.1 better in the future should she return to the top of the standings.
The Pole received a confidence boost over the weekend after capturing her 16th Tour title at the China Open where she produced an emphatic display against Russia’s Liudmila Samsonova in the final. Swiatek eased to a 6-2, 6-2, victory without producing a single unforced error. She has now won six WTA 1000 tournaments before the age of 23 which is something that has never been previously achieved on the Tour since the category was introduced in 2009.
Swiatek’s Beijing triumph puts her on a good footing for the season-ending WTA Finals which is taking place in the Mexican city of Cancun. It is the third consecutive season that she has qualified for the tournament with her best run being to the semi-final stage last year. Since the event was created in 1972, a Polish player has only won the title once which was Agnieszka Radwanska in 2015.
“Cancun is a really important tournament,” Swiatek told reporters over the weekend. “I want to get ready and also kind of continue the work I’ve been doing after US Open in terms of technique and what I want to improve on court.
“I’m going to spend two weeks home and I’m going to probably practice, like, eight days, and the rest are going to be days off. I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of time for me to do anything more. I’ll just focus on work and on the last tournament of the season.”
Heading into her final tournament of the year, Swiatek has already claimed five WTA trophies. It is the second season in a row that she has won five or more titles, which is a milestone that was last achieved on the women’s Tour by Serena Williams between 2013 and 2014.
However, in recent weeks there have also been blips for the 21-year-old who lost her No.1 ranking to Aryna Sabalenka, suffered a fourth round defeat at the US Open and then lost in the quarter-finals of the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo.
Looking ahead to the future, returning to the top of the WTA rankings is among her priorities. She has already held the position for 75 weeks which is a longer reign than that of Caroline Wozniacki, Simona Halep and Victoria Azarenka. If that were to happen, Swiatek believes she will be better equipped to deal with the pressure than before.
“For sure, there was a lot of pressure during past seasons,” she said. “I would say the progress that I’ve made was pretty fast and I kind of wasn’t expecting to become world No. 1 last year. I had to deal with a lot of things and kind of grow up tennis-wise really quickly – for sure, the pressure and everything that’s happening outside of the courts, it’s kind of, hard to deal with sometimes.”
“On the other hand this is part of the sport and we have to learn how to adjust and how to, like, really keep focusing on tennis and not all of the stuff around. I would say if I would become world No. 1 again, for sure I think I would be kind of more prepared for everything. It’s not like I would change some things exactly, but I would know how to deal with them at this point.”
Swiatek’s win-loss record for 2023 currently stands at 63-11. The WTA Finals will begin on October 29th.
