INTERNAZIONALI BNL D'ITALIA

May 13, 2024

Iga Swiatek

Press Conference

I. SWIATEK/A. Kerber

7-5, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Iga, a tough test from Angie today. Your thoughts on your performance.

IGA SWIATEK: Yeah, for sure wasn't easy. I'm happy in important moments at the end of both sets I was ready to break. I got my focus up a little bit.

At the end that's what made the difference, so I'm happy.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. When you talk about getting your focus up late in those sets, it's obviously a pattern we see with you, with you being able to manage the set, break towards the end, what is the switch that flicks in your head?

IGA SWIATEK: Honestly, I'm trying to be focused from the beginning to the end 100%. Sometimes it's not easy with the crowd, so much going on on court.

So here, I don't know, I just try more. For sure my goal is to stay kind of constant during the match. I'm sure if I'm going to work hard to just get my thoughts together, then it's going to be more natural later.

Q. In terms of Angie's game today, it seemed as though you were framing probably more balls than you would have liked. I don't know if that was lefty spin or apart from anything. As you reflected on the match afterwards, what did you think was attributing to that?

IGA SWIATEK: Yeah, for sure there were some miss-hits and some shots that went a little bit not where I wanted exactly. But you need to really be flexible on this court and adjust properly.

Probably it was also the lefty spin. It's not easy to adjust to that. Angie is using that a lot. I guess a mix. But you never really know. There's no point to, like, finding the reason. You just have to work towards managing it the best way possible. That's what I focused on.

At the end, in the second set, I felt like I'm hitting it cleaner, so it was better.

Q. A little bit out of context. We saw Andy Murray today with a completely new tennis racquet that he's never played with before, a different brand. When was the last time you made such a significant shift from equipment or the specifications at least of your racquet?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, I played with racquet with a different name before with Tecnifibre. Since I switched to Tecnifibre, it was all pretty similar. But as you could see, the graphics changed and the specifics a little bit, as well. But I'm staying in the same kind of zone because there's no point for me to change much. I like how I feel.

We were actually trying to change a little bit during the pre-season, but at the end we thought it was going to be better to stay with the same racquet. I guess it's part of our job also to think about equipment, finding the best equipment that's going to help you in important moments.

Q. Obviously you played Maddie two weeks ago. For you right now into the quarterfinals, what is the biggest challenge over the next few days to manage everything to get you what you want this week?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, I don't know. I don't see, like, any bigger changes than usual. I just want to stay in my rhythm, stay in my zone, be focused. Maybe the only challenge is that we're on tour for quite a long time and it's a little bit harder to stay in your bubble. But I'm good at it. Again, I'll try harder and it's going to be fine.

For sure playing against Maddie is not easy. The score was pretty one way in Madrid. It's kind of easy for your mind to just drift off sometimes. The most important thing is to stay focused and really disciplined. That's what I'm going to do for next days.

Q. Talking about being in the midst of a pretty difficult two weeks, where do you feel like you're at physically? Do you feel like you've recovered from Madrid or you're still maybe working through what's going to be a tough four-week stretch?

IGA SWIATEK: No, physically I feel good. I had couple of days off after Madrid. It was enough for me to reset, physically as well. I don't see any problems now.

I guess we'll see after tomorrow 'cause two matches in a row.

Q. Do you find that's odd the way that the schedule works out? It feels like the whole point was to give you more time between matches. Now you have to play back to back.

IGA SWIATEK: Well, we knew that from the beginning. It's always like that on this tournament. I kind of got used to it.