Iga Swiatek has figured out a way how to deal with the Olympic disappointment as the world No. 1 reveals she plans to “take it easy” in Cincinnati and just try to see if some things she has been working on in the last couple of days can work for her on the court.
If you remember well, Swiatek suffered one of the most disappointing and brutal defeats of her career after Zheng Qinwen upset her 6-2 7-5 in the Olympics semifinal. After the match, the 23-year-old Pole admitted that she drowned under massive pressure and expectations and later also shared that she cried for six hours.
Even though Swiatek dominated her bronze medal to win her maiden Olympic medal, it was clear that she was still impacted by what happened in the Zheng match and that her main goal wasn’t accomplished.
And after missing the WTA 1000 tournament in Toronto so she could rest a bit and try to mentally recover, Swiatek is ready to play her first hard-court tournament of this summer in Cincinnati.
Swiatek’s mindset in Cincinnati
“We’re taking it easy, doing everything step by step. For sure, it’s not going to be perfect from the beginning but I had a couple days to really get used to the surface, so I’m trying to do the best job possible every day and entering the court next day knowing I can do something better. I’m going to treat it as a practice tournament. Not in a way that I don’t care but in the way that I want to implement all the stuff I’ve been practiced, and I think that’s the best approach for me,” Swiatek explained.
In Cincinnati – which is one of the rare WTA 1000 tournaments where Swiatek doesn’t have a title – the Pole has a first-round bye as the top-seeded player.
In her Cincinnati opener, Swiatek play against either Ajla Tomljanovic or a qualifier.
