"Last year, I felt like much more off the balance," Swiatek told reporters after the match. "I felt like the whole season may be just tough because of the start. I was expecting much more.
"This year I was more focused on just not the results and not the rankings but my game a little bit more. This year I feel like I just want to get back to work. I know I'm going to have plenty of chances during the season to show my game."
Swiatek leaves Australia with a 7-1 start to her season. After going undefeated at the United Cup for Poland, she picked up two more wins in Melbourne to take her win streak, the second longest of her career, to 18 matches. Noskova ended the streak there with a fearless display of aggressive baseline tennis.
Swiatek has not progressed past the Round of 16 in Melbourne since making the semifinals in 2021. Despite her scintillating performances in Perth and Sydney to start the year, the 21-year-old Swiatek admitted something just didn't click this year when she arrived at Melbourne Park.
"For sure I was more stressed than on other tournaments, especially first two rounds," she said. "But I think some things just didn't work as they did before, even though I was working the same way.
"I feel like I did really everything I could in preseason to improve some stuff that I wanted to. Then I came here and I wasn't playing natural anymore. My split step was too late sometimes. Reaction a little bit slower."
Regardless of what happens for the remainder of the tournament, Swiatek's No.1 ranking remains intact. With World No.2 Aryna Sabalenka defending 2,000 points from her title run last year, Swiatek will remain No.1 into February. Her next scheduled stops will be the back-to-back WTA 1000 tournaments in Doha, where she is the two-time defending champion, and Dubai, where she made the final last year.
"I lost but I'm going to have more tournaments," Swiatek said. "I remember just last year getting back to work. I could reset and just focus on the next tournaments. So I'm going to do the same this year."
It's been a few hours, and a very late night (morning really) and I'm still processing it all. Strangely this loss doesn't hurt as bad as some of the others. Maybe because I went into it with low expectations after seeing Iga's draw.
But as is often the case my hopes/expectations rose when 2 of Iga's difficult rivals Rybakina and Ostapenko went out of the tournament (one right before her match).
I often blame the media for jumping the gun and hyping things up when something like this happens because no matter what in this sport the old adage of one match at a time still applies.
All in all Iga didn't play a bad match far from it in fact. It was high quality from both. She didn't give up and fought to the end.
I thought they were actually pretty evenly matched overall. Difference was her opponent was steadier in the key moments and even at the very end.
Solid over all with blistering backhands that caused Iga all kinds of trouble. And a much better serve on the day.
The first serve allowed her to get a lot of free points (had a total of 10 aces). Compared to Iga who couldn't find her fist serve in the final set especially and it made things exponentially harder. Having to fight in every service game just to stay even.
There was a moment where Noskova was serving for the match where Iga give it one last push and had love 30 if not for a bad volley at the net the whole outcome of the match could have changed (with her opponent having to defend 3 breakpoints instead). But there's no point in wondering about what ifs.
After losing the first set her opponent changed tactics and seemed to relax more (probably because she felt like she had nothing to lose) whereas it was the opposite for Iga. She was the one who got more tense as it went on.
A lot of people on social media kept mentioning that Iga wasn't playing at her best level from the start (not the way she was at United cup and the end of the year) forehand wasn't working lot's of errors etc. and sure there's probably a lot of truth in that.
I thought that maybe one of the reasons for this performance was that Iga's first 2 matches were quite long and taxing not just physically but mentally as well.
Something she's never really had to deal with before typically taking care of her opponents with ease in the early rounds of a Slam.
It would have certainly explained her concentration lapses and why she kept getting distracted with people moving round between games (which she knew is the new rule being introduced).
However Iga herself disputed all this in her post match interview presser so I guess I'm way off base there.
The Australian Open just continues to be a place she's not comfortable at, or I guess more specifically the fast paced courts.
For the moment it remains one of Iga's worst Grand Slams (2nd only to the grass of Wimbledon), but while it may not have worked out this year again I firmly believe that with Iga being only 22, one day everything will align and the title will be hers.
And it'll feel all the more sweet when it happens.
So while the disappointment may be big right now for both Iga and her fans, in the grand scheme of things it'll be okay.
This is only the first tournament of the year after all we have a whole season of tournaments ahead. Plus the Olympics which I know Iga will be making a priority.
It may not have been her best level, or the result we all wanted. But I enjoyed what we got and I'm proud of the fight nonetheless. I think we as fans often take her losses harder than Iga herself which is one of the weirdest things about sport really.
I was glad to see that the messages people were sending her after this loss were largely positive instead of all the hate she and her team kept receiving last year. Good to know people learned to censor themselves before spewing their anger on social media.
I hope she gets some well deserved rest and relaxation now and allows that knee of hers to heal a bit. Before getting back to work next month.
On to the Middle East.
Jazda!
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