MIAMI OPEN PRESENTED BY ITAú

March 30, 2022

Iga Swiatek

Press Conference

I. SWIATEK/P. Kvitova

6-3, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Petra is obviously an amazing champion, too. What does this win mean to you?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, a lot. You know, for last couple of weeks I had a chance to play with so many great players. You know, I really appreciate her like fighting spirit, especially after what she's been through. She's on tour for so many years that she has a lot of experience.

I kind of, you know, wanted to use like few years of my experience also in this match. But, you know, I feel like having a chance to play against these players is great and I'm going to remember that, even though I think we are going to have many more chances to play again.

THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. Pretty perfect performance tonight. What were you happiest with about how you played?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, for sure my first serve, and I would say, you know, just keeping up with her pace and actually giving back even stronger balls and forcing my opponent to make a little bit more mistakes, yeah.

Q. About this winning streak, what is the toughest thing for you having these kind of matches almost every day, every week? It's like fatigue or physical fatigue or more like a mental thing? What is the toughest thing?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, for sure I think like I think the fatigue hit me during -- not during, but on a day when I played against Coco, because I had really not so much time to actually recover. But yesterday I had like total day off, and I think my team basically is managing my recovery pretty well, because they know what's best for me.

I didn't even have to come on courts yesterday, so that was new kind of situation, because usually we do like, even like 40 minutes on court.

But this time it was different, because they knew that I need that. I'm pretty happy that they are making the good decisions, because I feel like I can trust them.

Also, my body feels great, which is, for me, like I kind of, I don't know, I want to see where my limit is and also how it's going to cope. I always felt pretty confident with my body.

Yeah, my mental game also is on point, because I feel like I'm using this streak, and it's not like something that is pushing me down. So for sure it gets, like I get tired and I have to work through that, but it's, you know, it's just being like mentally tired. It's not something that I haven't had in my life. So I feel like I can even use the experience I had from last year.

Q. Speaking physically, I have been admiring all tournament how low you get to the ground when you're hitting some of those balls. Is it core stability, hip mobility? What do you work on to get that low?

IGA SWIATEK: I don't know. Usually I just do the exercises that they tell me to do, so honestly, I don't know the details. I'm not an expert.

But basically I think it's -- yeah, I mean, probably we are working on everything honestly. Yeah, I like doing conditioning and all the fitness stuff, so basically it was always important for me to physically be able to be stronger than my opponents.

Right now it became kind of obvious that I'm gonna be, you know, strong and I'm gonna run to everything. Yeah, when I was younger, I had to a little bit force myself to do that, but I got used to it. Right now I feel like, yeah, pretty confident it's giving me a lot of skills. It's great.

Q. Follow-up for your next match, obviously Jess Pegula has had two retirements in the last two rounds. Do you feel like it gives you a little bit of advantage that you have had more time on court while you're here?

IGA SWIATEK: Honestly, I had so much time on court last couple of weeks that I think it doesn't really matter how much I played. I don't know about her, because it's how, you know, it's how she feels. I have no idea how to answer that.

But I didn't even know that she had two retirements. I thought only one today. Yeah, I think it's going to be a great match anyways. As tennis players, we're kind of used to every situation, having many hours on court but also having less sometimes. So we'll see.

Q. A general question, when a tournament starts, are you the kind of person who looks through the entire draw or don't do that?

IGA SWIATEK: I'm kind of finding the right way, because last year I was looking at draws and sometimes I got myself like thinking already about next rounds, and that wasn't pretty constructive.

So this year I'm not doing that. I'm just looking on my next match, and at the beginning of the tournament, I'm only asking my team if the draw is good or bad, whatever that means (smiling), because, you know, in tennis you can't really predict if it's going to be good or bad.

Yeah, I'm just looking at next rounds this season. I think it's helpful, but I don't really know if that has much influence.

Q. With Naomi, normally she doesn't look at the draw, but like a couple of days ago she watched The Tennis Channel accidentally and she watch the entire draw, and she saw like a commentator saying maybe third round is going to be someone against someone, and she wasn't included in that one.

IGA SWIATEK: Well, so that's the tricky thing about it, because I didn't want to make this like a superstition or something. It's just something that is going to help me focus only on the next match.

So, yeah, I have the same issues sometimes, but I just kind of close my eyes and cover my ears really quickly so I can't see anything.

Yeah, but I think, you know, if I'm going to see the draw, I don't think it's going to matter for me, because I been seeing draws my whole life. I'm just trying this new solution and seeing if it's going to help me focus a little bit more.