World No. 1 Iga Swiatek reveals she is trying to pay no attention to expert opinions but admitted that she is aware there are high expectations on her since she is entering the US Open as the top seed. Swiatek hasn’t played well this summer but she is still the player who has had the most success this season.
This summer on hard courts, Swiatek is just 2-2, having suffered back-to-back round-of-16 losses in Toronto and Cincinnati. “In a sense, I do not pay attention to it (expert opinions), although often such voices come to me, but you also have to learn how to work with it,” Swiatek said, via Sportskeeda.
“I think that’s the role of the highest seeded players to deal with expectations from the outside. But I’m good at cutting myself off from that and focusing on what I need to do.”
Swiatek on the US Open ball rules
In Cincinnati, Swiatek criticized the US Open balls, calling them “horrible” and “pretty bad.”
“The balls are specific, ours are destroyed very quickly and after two games they behave completely differently than at the beginning. It is demanding. I actually said everything about it in Cincinnati, and now I’m mostly focused on learning how to play these balls and adapting to it,” Swiatek said.
The US Open is the only Grand Slam where the men and women play with a different type of balls. Going forward, Swiatek hopes that rule will change in the near future. “I think I’m one of those players who have a little more challenging way to get used to these balls, because of the style of play.
But everybody has the same path, so I don’t want to use the subject of balls as an excuse or to show that it can be difficult here,” Swiatek explained. “I’m still working to learn how to play with those balls. I hope that in future years it will be considered that we play the same balls as men in Grand Slams.”
