By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Friday Saturday January 30, 2021
Iga Swiatek has not played a competitive match since she stormed to the Roland Garros title in early October to become the youngest champion in Paris since Monica Seles in 1992, and the 19-year-old is champing at the bit in Melbourne.
“Right now I feel like I'm ready,” she said. “Actually I can't wait for the tournament to start.”
Swiatek, who spoke to reporters in Melbourne on Sunday ahead of her appearance at the Gippsland Trophy, says that her confidence has grown from her experience in Paris.
“I'm more kind of confident that I can play good tennis,” she said. “But it all depends on my preparation, on my attitude. Basically I'm trying to keep my expectations low, even though I did a really good pre-season. I'm just, yeah, waiting for the tournament to start. Actually I've practiced for so long that mostly I'm excited and not anxious.”
Many might incorrectly assume that the teenager has been on Cloud 9 ever since she took home the Couple Suzanne Lenglen in October to become the first Grand Slam singles champion in Polish tennis history, but Swiatek was quick to clarify:
“Actually it's like the opposite of being on a cloud,” she said. “I always thought after winning a Grand Slam, I don't know, I'm going to celebrate every day and just be happy about it. But it was, like, pretty hard.”
Swiatek said she felt unprepared for the experience, but since then she has quickly learned to cope.
“It's hard to describe,” the World No. 17 said. “Like most of the players also need to prepare for the success, not only for the whole process of winning. I feel like maybe I didn't prepare. But we didn't also have time. Nobody ever knew that I'm going to win a Grand Slam being 19.
"It was more of, like, hitting with the reality that winning a Grand Slam isn't, like—how to say—unusual experience, it's just like winning another tournament, and now comes more work, comes all the obligation and expectation. Yeah, it was opposite of being on a cloud.”
Swiatek will open her season in a few days when she faces either Kaja Juvan or Wang Yafan in second-round action, after a bye.
It will be difficult for her to replicate the magic of her run in Paris so soon, but she seems to have made peace with the fact that there is still a lot of work to be done. She’ll be more focused on progressing and becoming a more consistent player week in and week out than listening to the lofty expectations that the media has now set for her.
She told reporters she is trying to distance herself from the results and just focus on what she can control.
“Even though it seems really weird not to care before a tournament, sometimes it's good because you can have this distance and you can see things not like in an emotional way, you know, but more rationally,” she said.
But she won’t rule out the possibility of winning back-to-back majors either, and why should she?
“Yeah, I'm going to try to do that,” she said when asked if she can win the Australian Open, “but I don't know if I can just snap a fingers and do it. We're going to see.”