Iga Swiatek happy with her gameplan if not her game

US Open
Iga Swiatek media duties

World No 1 and defending champion Iga Swiatek was pleased that her plans for the match against Daria Saville came together for a straight sets win but she feels she has a lot to work on before the third round.

Swiatek wasn’t thrilled with her performance despite winning in just over 90 minutes.

She feels that her plan to be aggressive ended up paying off but Swiatek bemoaned her unforced error count.

“Well, I don’t know. I just felt like I kind of prevailed, because that match wasn’t easy,” Swiatek said in assessing her performance at a US Open press conference.

“I’m just happy to be in the third round. For sure I want to improve some stuff, because I did some unforced errors. You know, it’s just the beginning of the tournament, so for sure I work on some stuff.

“For sure I wanted to be intensive, and mostly I was in charge of what I’m going to kind of play, because I was the one that was attacking.

“I made some mistakes because you need to, you know, risk a little bit more. But, yeah, for sure, it wasn’t easy. She was using most of my power to get these balls back.

“So yeah, I’m just happy at the end I was the one that won.”

Swiatek opened up on the constant struggle to control her emotions on the tennis court.

She feels that the worst emotion for a tennis player to feel on court is shame.

The WTA No 1 feels that she has a decent handle on herself during matches though.

“I think, you know, the worst emotion you can feel in sport is shame when you play bad and you know that all these people are watching,” said Swiatek.

“So this is something that I think, you know, this is the hardest thing. I felt that, you know, couple of times in my career. It wasn’t easy.

“For sure, you know, there are positive and negative emotions. Usually it’s harder to handle the negative ones. Yeah, it’s not easy. It’s part of the job to kind of just accept that you’re going to be watched and kind of not care about that.

“But on the other hand, work on being able to control your emotions and what you do on the court.

“I’m also working on that, and I made huge progress since couple of years ago.

“I don’t remember last time I broke a racket or, I don’t know, had, like, a burst of emotions, you know. Usually obviously there is something, because I am emotional and this is, like, a stressful job with a lot of tension and adrenaline.

“But still, I’m happy with how I’m managing that.”

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Iga Swiatek

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