US OPEN

September 4, 2024

Iga Swiatek

Press Conference

J. PEGULA/I. Swiatek

6-2, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: If you could, your thoughts on the match.

IGA SWIATEK: Well, for sure, it wasn't a good performance from myself. But Jessie used it, so she played better, I played worse, and she won.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. At what point in this match did you start to feel like something was perhaps a little bit off? And what did you do early to try to correct it?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, probably when I losing 4-0 in the first set, I tried to do the same kind of work as usual. I didn't really understand why my serve wasn't working. It was hard for me to find, like, a proper solution for that.

Q. A tough one tonight. You have rightfully spoken about how long the schedule is and how exhausted you have been and how stressful it is. Would you consider just taking a few months off and trying to refresh, and just if you're tired, why not thinking about getting a good rest?

IGA SWIATEK: No, I don't think it would make sense. If you're out of tour, then it's pretty hard to come back (smiling).

Q. Even you?

IGA SWIATEK: I mean... I don't want to take a break. It's tough. It could be a little bit easier, but I'm keeping up with the schedule. I'm only talking about mandatory tournaments and there are rules about mandatory tournaments.

But I'm ready for playing till November, I guess, unless I'm going to get injured.

Q. Obviously the US Open is always a test of kind of endurance to some degree just because of where it is in the calendar and how long the season is. I just wondered with this an Olympic year and the extra tennis, if you could compare how you feel and have felt during this US Open compared to non-Olympic years?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, it's hard for me to compare, because every year I have, like, different challenges, like for example, last year I felt like a lot of, I don't know, anxiety and pressure with, like, being World No. 1, and I don't know, feeling that I might lose it, you know.

This year I didn't feel it that much. I feel like more mature in terms of not really thinking about the rankings and the points. So I think on this tournament, yeah, it's hard for me to, like, compare, because there are so many other factors except the Olympics that come in that it's hard to judge.

But for sure, you know, one less tournament on hard court, a little bit less time to play on hard court, maybe that matters. But honestly, I'm not that experienced to know.

Q. Were there things that Jess was doing that made life difficult for you out there tonight?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, as I said it before, it's never easy to play against Jess. She has a tricky ball because it's pretty low and pretty flat.

But I wouldn't say she changed like a lot, because it's impossible to change her game style, but for sure she was for sure, like, more solid than me and making much less mistakes. So because of that, she was kind of putting, you know, pressure with that. But usually I'm able to push it back or put pressure on myself, but today I just made too many mistakes.

Q. I think you said coming into the tournament that you had lower expectations for yourself. Was that because of how you were playing or more because you were taking the pressure off yourself?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, I'm always trying to have lower expectations, because I know that, like, any of us can win this tournament, and it's not going to be easy, you know. And also, I feel like when I have high expectations, I never perform well. So I try to lower them. It's not like it's just low and that's it, you know, because it's hard to have low expectations when everybody is expecting something from you, and you kind of know that you might have a game to play well, you know.

But for sure, I mean, I remember how it was last year, and, you know, I'm not gonna just expect from myself that I'm always going to win. I'm more just focusing on the work. And it's more of an answer, because when I talk to you guys, because everybody is always, like, speaking about results straightaway when you go to a tournament, they want to know what my goal is, I don't know, winning the final, the semifinal, and it's just not it, you know. These are not my goals when I go in a tournament.

That's my answer kind of, because I want to explain that I don't expect from myself the results. I'm more expecting that I'm going to work and I'm going to go through some problems and work on them, and that's it.

Q. Early in the first set when you kind of started to notice that the serve wasn't maybe working, how much of it, when you talk about finding solutions, like, what was your training, I guess, in that moment to try? Did you find that it was cascading, kind of like domino effect, like, you were distracted by that? You know what I mean? Or was it just everything was not working?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, not really. On the one hand I was telling myself that I can still play well from the baseline. And I've had many tournaments where I didn't serve well and I managed to win anyway.

But I probably didn't find the right solution because I couldn't push with my serve. Also, I wasn't that solid from the baseline to have a backup like that. I mean, it's just, you're not going to win if you make so many mistakes, and I made those and, I mean, it's on me.