PARIS: Iga Swiatek is back on the winning side as she looks to add to her four-time French Open title to claim her first Olympic title at Roland Garros.
The Polish world number one has dominated the red clay of Paris, winning four of her last five tournaments and remaining unbeaten there since losing in the quarterfinals to Greece's Maria Sakkari in 2021.
The five-time Grand Slam champion, who won the 2022 US Open, is looking to go further than she did at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where she lost to Paola Badosa in the second round.
Swiatek, 23, has had plenty of time to prepare for the Paris Olympics after her early exit at Wimbledon, where she lost in the third round to Yulia Putintseva.
A painful defeat on grass at the All England Club brought Swiatek's 21-match winning streak to an abrupt end.
She was then asked how she would prepare for the Paris Olympics.
“I will definitely study and rest a little bit more,” she said. “I don’t know. I feel like even though I didn’t do well in this tournament, given the overall situation of the season, I deserved it.”
“I really should have done better because I couldn’t play good tennis all season.”
In 2020, Swiatek announced herself to the tennis world when she won the French Open without dropping a set.
She became the first Polish player, male or female, to win a Grand Slam singles title and has held the title ever since, with her one blip occurring three years ago.
Last month, she defeated Italy's Jasmine Paolini in a one-sided final, making her the fourth woman in the modern era to win the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen four times, after Justine Henin, Chris Evert and Steffi Graf.
The world No. 1 also won three clay titles – Madrid, Rome and Roland Garros – with only one woman in history having done so in the same season: Serena Williams.
Swiatek has a strong sporting background, with her father Tomasz representing Poland in rowing at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
“Normally, a young kid would have trouble hitting even one or two balls, but she could hit dozens of them,” recalled her first coach, Arthur Szostazko.
“She’s a fighter… I know that if it’s a super tiebreak, there’s no need to worry anymore — Iga won’t give up under pressure.”
Szostaczko taught Swiatek until he was 10 years old.
She was then coached by Michal Kaznowski, who recalled that Swiatek always wanted to be treated on an equal footing with her hardworking older sister Agata.
“Ika was very angry with me because I offered basic training where I would feed Agata eight balls, but Ika could only give her six balls because she was younger,” he said.
“She was so angry. She went to her father and said she wanted as much as Akata.”
Swiatek hopes this determination will take her to the gold medal on her favorite court in Paris.
