PORSCHE TENNIS GRAND PRIX

April 15, 2024

Iga Swiatek

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Iga, welcome back to the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart.

IGA SWIATEK: Thank you.

THE MODERATOR: Champion the last two years. Talk about how excited you are to be back here defending your title.

IGA SWIATEK: Really excited, especially because that's my first days on clay. I'm happy to be back on this surface. Obviously I really like it and I missed it. It's nice to be back.

Also I love this tournament. I have really great memories. Hopefully I'm going to create some more memories this year.

THE MODERATOR: Who would like the first question?

Q. What have you done with your Porsche that you won last year?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, I've been using it. So, yeah, it's fun. I use it on a daily basis at home. I feel like actually it's one of the reasons I really like to come back home, because I can drive my own car. We don't have many opportunities on tour to do that. We have here, but on other tournaments it's not so easy.

I'm working on my driving skills. Really not using the full potential of the Porsche car because I would probably have too many tickets (smiling). Just driving around and having, like, a huge pleasure of it, yeah.

Q. What kind of driver are you compared with your tennis style? Are you more... Do you like to drive fast?

IGA SWIATEK: It depends. When I'm practicing a lot and I'm tired, I like to have peace in my car. I really like how comfortable the Panamera is. Really, I mean, sometimes I'm putting loud music, but overall it's pretty quiet, pretty smooth. Still you can feel the sporty vibe.

Sometimes I like to drive a little bit faster, but not too crazy. Obviously I have so much adrenaline on the court that sometimes I don't need any more off the court. I also have 911 at home. When I want to mix it up, I jump into the 911.

Sorry, it sounds weird, but I'm pretty proud of how I played during these past year here's in Stuttgart. It's amazing we can have such a prize for winning. Pretty crazy.

Q. Did you already see the Porsche made by LEGO?

IGA SWIATEK: Here?

Q. Yes.

IGA SWIATEK: I haven't. I need to right now.

Q. There are like 350,000 pieces of LEGO.

IGA SWIATEK: I'll go there for sure. I did see this little 911 model a couple of years ago. It was also fun. But this one sounds even more fun, so I go see it.

Q. If you would need to write something about yourself after four or five years on the top of the game, with everything mental, sporting-wise, what would you write about yourself in April 2024?

IGA SWIATEK: Oh, my God. Probably this book would have been 600 pages, so... Hard to answer that.

I would just write how I'm proud of my progress and everything in terms of how I handled all the different challenges during my career. Everything happened so quickly. I sometimes needed to catch up with my life, to have balance and also be able to do all these obligations well, keep a nice shape on court.

Yeah, I would just say how proud I am of that. I think I made a pretty good job at that.

Q. Just want to know about practice today. As soon as you're out of Miami are you, like, the next day I want to be on clay? How quick is that transition?

IGA SWIATEK: Honestly, that was my first practice on clay today, so I'm not going to have a lot of time to play on clay.

I don't think it matters because here the surface is pretty fast, faster than normal clay, I mean. It's like actually between the hard courts and normal clay.

You need to adjust the movements because it's slippery. But overall I kind of had memories in my mind of how it was for me to play here last year, for example.

I felt today that I can do the transition pretty quickly. I'm not expecting that I'm going to feel comfortable from my first match because, yeah, you always need some matches to just gain confidence on any surface, even if you feel comfortable on it.

Yeah, but because of Fed Cup after Miami, I still played on hard court.

Q. It's your 99th week at No. 1. You passed Lindsay on the big, long list this week. I'm curious, for you, you have many stats surrounding your last three years. Are there certain stats that make you sit up to take notice and think, Wow, that's cool?

IGA SWIATEK: Honestly, yeah, this is one of these stats actually. I think overall, like, that I'm in the top 10 of all time in terms of weeks at No. 1, I wouldn't expect that ever couple of years back. This is one of them.

Sometimes during the season when I finish, like, Sunshine Double or one swing, my team is saying to me, telling me that, I don't know, I lost only five matches this year. I feel like, Wow. It didn't feel like it. I'm always happy with the consistency.

I would say these two.

Q. A question about your playing on clay. I remember when you came here last year, you came out of being injured, and still you won. How easy is it for you to adapt to clay? Do you take to it like a fish to water?

IGA SWIATEK: It is easy, but still you need to remember that your brain thinks that the ball is going to bounce in a different way for a couple of days. Even for a player who is feeling really comfortable, I feel like you need a couple of days anyway.

Last year I was coming back from injury. I practiced in Warsaw on clay. It was different than this year. This year is more similar to 2022 because back then I also played Fed Cup and I also had only like two days on clay before my first match. We'll see. Honestly, it's my second year when I have a situation like that.

It was a nice experience in 2022. I remember I played with no expectations. This year is a little bit different with you guys reminding me about defending the title (smiling). I'll try to take it easy and step by step no matter what.

Q. It's a special year with the Olympics this year. How important are the Games for you? Do you change your schedule to be prepared perfectly?

IGA SWIATEK: I wouldn't say there is much room for changing the schedule before the Olympics if you want to play on clay and on grass. I always want to do that. There's not much room to do that.

Obviously I'm not going to take vacation after Wimbledon. This has to wait. Maybe we'll adjust the schedule afterwards so I can rest properly. Yeah, the tour is intense. Having one more important tournament in there, it's not easy to maneuver in that.

We'll do our best, yeah.

Q. Saudi Arabia is getting more and more tennis events, big offer to WTA and ATP. What is your opinion about this development?

IGA SWIATEK: Honestly, in terms of these offers, I'm always kind of waiting for the official decision. We as players don't have much influence on that. I think WTA and ATP needs to make these decisions, put us in a space where we kind of know what we're standing on.

For sure the game is changing. This has influence on it. But I hope this influence is going to be positive in terms of the change that happens. WTA has told us before, when we had plenty of meetings, that this is one of the goals to make some changes there. We'll see how that's going to go.

No matter where the Finals are going to be, I just hope it's going to be a nice atmosphere. I hope WTA is going to take care of that so we can just play tennis and enjoy it.

Q. From the outside, I feel like you manage expectations quite well from the tennis world, but on the other hand also expectation from your home country. If I speak to Polish colleagues, they say some people in Poland, they think Iga has to win every single tournament. How do you manage that for yourself? Also, do you have days where you don't feel very comfortable, how you manage everything?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, it's pretty easy for me to cut off all these things that are, like, screaming these things, like social media or everything. During the tournaments, I try to not go there too much. I'm just posting my stuff and not really going on Twitter or Instagram.

Actually at the beginning I kind of had to force myself to do it. Now it feels comfortable. Now there's actually so many things that I really don't understand on the Internet that are weird and not really true, it's better for me to stay away from it a little bit.

In terms of the expectations from the outside, that's it. But I have my expectations. I would say if I feel like I didn't manage expectations well overall, it's because I didn't manage my expectations. The ones from the outside, they really don't matter that much because I made huge work to manage it and to not really care about them.

Still sometimes it hits you, especially when you're tired and you know you did your best, but still people are scrutinizing you. They don't know the full truth, what's going on off the court, as well. Sometimes it's not easy.

I already kind of understand how the world works, and I'm not expecting that it's going to change. For sure it would be nice if people remember that we're still human. Yeah, it's not possible to win every tournament.