The clay season opens for the tennis players of the WTA circuit and the first date immediately sees the best in the world on the court. The WTA 250 in Stuttgart has begun and all four of the top tennis players in the world rankings will be in the starting blocks.
Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina will try to hunt down Iga Swiatek, reigning champion for two consecutive years at the German tournament. The Pole, fresh from two successes in the Billie Jean King Cup, has not yet played any match on clay this year, but she wants to be ready for Roland Garros, a slam that she has won three times in her career.
In the press conference, the world number one spoke about her expectations for the clay court season and her record of 99 weeks as number one at just 22 years old.
The words of Iga Swiatek
The Polish tennis player’s career, despite still being in its infancy, already boasts extraordinary numbers.
“If I were to write a book it would be about 600 pages long. I would write about how proud I am of my progress and everything about how I have handled different challenges throughout my career.
It all happened so fast. Sometimes I needed to recover my life, to have a balance and to fulfill all the obligations. I think I did a good job in this sense,” said Swiatek.
On preparing for the clay court season. “Honestly, my first clay court training was today, so I won’t have much time to play on clay. I don’t think it matters because the surface here is quite fast, more than normal.
It’s a cross between concrete and clay. You have to adapt your movements because it is slippery. In general, I remember how I felt last year. Today I felt like I could make the transition quickly.
I don’t expect to feel comfortable right from my debut, because sometimes you need matches to gain confidence on any surface” explained the Pole. This is Swiatek’s 99th week at the top of the WTA rankings.
“It’s one of the coolest statistics. In general, being in the Top 10 all this time and all these weeks in first place is something I couldn’t imagine a couple of years ago. Sometimes during the season, when I finish a tour, my team tells me we’ve only lost five games and I’m surprised, it doesn’t feel like that.
I’m always happy with the consistency.” The Polish number one concluded by talking about expectations: “As for external expectations, I tend to isolate myself during tournaments and not look too much, but I have my expectations.
I feel like I haven’t handled them well overall. The external ones don’t really matter because I’ve worked to manage them, but still, sometimes they hurt you. Especially when you know you did your best and people still criticize you.
They don’t know the whole truth, what happens even off the track. Sometimes it’s not easy. I understand how the world works and I don’t expect it to change, but It would be nice if people remembered that we are still peoplethat you can’t win every tournament.
