And now, just three matches later, she saw her 21-match win streak -- 19 of which were built on her favored clay -- come to a listless end. After taking the first set over Putintseva, she lost 12 of the next 15 games.
"For me going from this kind of tennis where I felt like I'm playing the best tennis in my life to another surface where I kind of struggle a little bit more, it's not easy," Swiatek told reporters after the loss.
"All that stuff really combines to me not really having a good time in Wimbledon."
For the third consecutive year, Wimbledon feels like a penalty Swiatek is forced to accept for her clay-court supremacy. It remains the only Slam at which she has yet to make it past the quarterfinals, which she has done just once.
In 2022, she saw her 37-match win streak end in the third round to Alizé Cornet. Last year, she cut her R&R short to play a pre-Wimbledon tournament and went on to post her best result so far in the quarterfinals.
This year, she did not play a pre-tournament event but she also didn't do much resting. As a result, Swiatek admitted to feeling the mental strain. For a player who won two tournaments during the clay season from match-points down, she struggled to find her fight.
"My tank of really pushing myself to the limits became suddenly, like, empty," Swiatek said. "I was kind of surprised. But I know what I did wrong after Roland Garros. I didn't really rest properly. I'm not going to make this mistake again.
"After such a tough clay court season, I really must have my recovery. Maybe that's also the reason."
Swiatek was hoping she would be able to transfer her confidence and level to grass after a few matches, and that may have proven true if she could navigate her way through the first week. She plays her best when she's allowed to tap into her intuition and instincts, which only works if she's feeling confident.
But Swiatek never looked in full flow in the first week and Putintseva was able to expose her insecurities on the surface. Swiatek has prided herself in her improved ability on clay and hard courts to adjust tactically throughout a match and to deploy a Plan B or C.
Grass still requires a different equation for the World No.1. Swiatek's frustrations were evident as Putintseva took control of the match. She just couldn't get out of her own way and find a solution.
"I feel like on grass I need little bit more of that energy to keep being patient and accept some mistakes," Swiatek said. "Like mentally, I didn't really do that well on this tournament. I need to recover better after clay court season, both physically and mentally."
"I literally came back to work -- not tennis-wise, but off-court stuff -- and I shouldn't have done that. Maybe next year I'm going to take a vacation and literally just do nothing."
Swiatek isn't one to let a loss linger. In a season that has already seen her secure five Hologic WTA Tour titles, this was just her fifth loss of the year. She is an outstanding 45-5 on the season.
"I lost in the third round," Swiatek said. "I felt like I underachieved a little bit.
"But it's tennis, so you have to move on. I'll have many more chances this year to show my game. I'll just focus on that."
Honestly as sad as I initially was about this loss, it may just be a blessing in disguise when it comes to Olympic preparation.
It'll give her a bit more time to rest and switch her mind and body on to her preferred surface of clay.
Would I have liked for her to go further this year? of course (I was hoping for at least the quarterfinals) but knowing grass is still not a surface she's comfortable on I kept my expectations fairly low.
I did see huge improvements in regards to the new service motion and grass so that's one great positive, the rest is simply a work in progress.
I think not playing a warm up tournament probably didn't do her any favors (last year she played better when she did).
But with the grass season being so short it's understandable she wanted to decompress more. She won 3 tournaments back to back on the dirt. I mean that's the stuff of legends really.
The media and fans are unsurprisingly giving her a lot of flack, but they also forget it took even the G.o.a.t.s. time to figure this surface out.
Serena Williams had plenty of week one exits before she finally won it for the first time, so did players with a game suited for the green stuff like Ash Barty.
So I think in that sense everyone needs to ease up, she's 23 years old and has plenty of time to plan her schedule better and adapt on this surface in the near future.
With hopefully a more favorable draw where she can actually play her way into the 2nd week.
Not that the tour makes it easy with all the big tournaments being 2 weeks now leaving even less rest time for players to recover.
Not to mention that this year she made it no secret Olympics were her priority. And why shouldn't they be, she actually has a real chance at it this year.
It's being played in Paris on clay her fave place and surface in the world.
So I say Wimbledon can wait. And selfishly I'm actually glad she went out early given how many players got injured in week 1 with either, leg, thigh or shoulder issues which stemmed from falls or slips on the grass.
Even poor Hubi Hurkacz who's Iga's mixed doubles partner at the Olympics did something to his knee (I'm still praying he'll recover in time to be able to play).
While I hated that Iga lost to Putinseva of all people that also turned out to be a blessing because she would have had to play Jelena Ostapenko in the quarters who she already has a 0-4 record against so why possibly make that gap larger.
Jelena probably already feels like she owns Iga (for now) this would have just made her more unbearable. Iga definitely dodged a huge bullet in that sense.
While Iga's Wimbledon journey may have been short I'm now very much looking forward to her Olympic one.
I want her to have a good run and hopefully win a medal (then I'll be able to finally erase the image of her weeping into a towel at the Tokyo Olympics a few years back).
Rest up Iga, plenty of great prizes still up for grabs this year.
On to the next one.
Jazda.
Side note: I'll now be rooting for either former French Open Champion Barbora Krejcikova or this year's French Open runner up Jasmine Paolini to win in their semis tomorrow.
And for one of them to win it all.
Sadly 2-time finalist Ons Jabeur didn't make it far year either. As long as Elena Rybakina isn't the one holding the trophy on Saturday I'll be ecstatic for whoever takes it.
I do have a soft spot for the aforementioned 2 though.
No comments:
Post a Comment