US OPEN

August 29, 2024

Iga Swiatek

Press Conference

I. SWIATEK/E. Shibahara

6-0, 6-1

THE MODERATOR: To round three once again. Dominating performance. Can you talk about your level of play from round one to round two, what you saw today from what you had done two days ago.

IGA SWIATEK: Well, for sure I used yesterday to practice a little bit and get my rhythm. I felt like I can play in a much more solid way, and I was making for sure better decisions.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. When you play against someone who you have never played before or you don't have much information, like today, what is your approach to this kind of match?

IGA SWIATEK: It depends. Sometimes I'm just following fully -- I mean, I'm always following fully what my coach said. But sometimes I'm not checking; sometimes I am checking how my opponent plays. I'm watching some videos online, but not too much because I just want to know what's her game style. But tactically I'm still kind of relying on what my coach is saying because he's the one spending hours watching my opponents.

For me probably too much work to do. It's better for me to recover between matches.

Q. Iga, a few players have spoken about online abuse, hateful messages that they get. How do you think gambling has contributed to that, and do you see messages from gamblers after matches about the match you've just played?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, it happened a couple of times, but I got to say that I'm not, you know, going to my other inbox. I'm only kind of seeing the messages from my close ones, the ones that I already accepted.

But for sure there is a lot of hate. Mostly I'm trying to be in Internet and avoid that a little bit.

How much gambling? I mean, I don't know the statistics. I've never made research about it, but for sure people are really emotional when it comes to winning or losing money.

It has probably a big impact, but I don't know I can tell you like numbers. I think it's kind of easy to check, but yeah, for sure it's not easy for us players.

It would be nice if we can kind of do more as Caro did, for example, and kind of try to educate people, and also maybe in the future have some solutions as, you know, using AI to make it safer for us. Because I feel like we can't be on the internet and feel like kind of safe anymore. You have to really be careful on what you're reading, who you're following, yeah.

Q. What do you think of what the tour is doing to try to combat this?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, what the tour is doing. I know that there are some tools that, for example, Roland Garros offered for us, like this app that we can have on the phone, and it's going to block the hateful messages. And it's also going to learn with you when you're going to tag some messages as hateful or comments, you know.

I'm always kind of saying that this is really nice, and my team also has been kind of looking in my case what kind of messages have been blocked or not when we're using this app. It would be nice if we had more opportunities to use these kind of tools because it's always some kind of a help.

Q. I just wanted to ask you about the Olympics. I know you wanted to win the gold, but how joyful was winning the bronze after...

IGA SWIATEK: For sure it was more joyful than after a couple of days of, like, still thinking about the match that I lost. So I think I kind of needed to digest that. After a while I got much more -- I was much more proud of myself.

I also realized how much baggage I had on my shoulders. I'm still happy that I could finish with a medal and kind of prove myself that I could win a medal, yeah.

Q. In a strange way some people have said this, winning a bronze medal almost feels better than winning silver because you won your last match. It's a strange kind of...

IGA SWIATEK: Yeah, that's true. That's why it was kind of bittersweet, and I didn't understand what's going on right after I won this match. Yeah, because it doesn't happen often in tennis.

I would say in Olympics in a normal situation, like normal tournament, finishing third wouldn't be a good result for me, but the Olympics it feels a little bit different.

Also, being together on the podium and kind of feeling that we're kind of part of our sport and we're representing it, it really made it much better than on any other tournament.

Q. You mentioned on the court that there were some things you worked on in the last couple of days since your first match. Did you work on anything in terms of psychologically, sort of attitude? You seemed to have a different demeanor out there today in some ways.

IGA SWIATEK: It's not like I need to do that much work because I kind of have the tools, but sometimes it's just hard to use them. I couldn't really focus well on my first-round match, and I wanted to improve that.

I gave myself time and acceptance that it may not be perfect, but step by step I can, yeah, as you said, have better focus and have better mindset. Today it was for sure a little bit better, yeah.

Q. What are some of the ways you go about doing that? Is it just having a chat with yourself or...

IGA SWIATEK: Usually I don't feel well on court when I have too big expectations or because of that I make wrong decisions on court. So I just try to kind of reset and to remember that I don't have to, like, play perfect tennis all the time, and it's good if I make some mistakes, but I should just focus on improving, and that's it.

Q. I tried to ask you, you said before about you don't like to have late nights necessarily and the importance of sleep to your recovery. I just wondered how you manage your sleep and how important that is as part of the whole package?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, it's not like that I don't like late-night matches, but for sure it's harder for me to kind of recover. I think it is for any player.

I like late-night matches when it happens, like, once or twice per tournament, but I had more trouble with it when it was, like, five times in two weeks, as I had in 2023 on like two 1000 tournaments.

Yeah, it's not easy, but I feel like I'm handling it much better than two years ago. I have my ways. Also, I understand it a little bit more, so it's not that frustrating. It's easier for me to get back to sleep.

I'm drinking coffee before my match. I am sometimes taking energy shots with caffeine. It's not only about mental thing. It's more also that your body is, like, full of adrenaline and this energy, and it's hard to get it down, but it's part of the job, you know.

Tennis is pretty hard sport in terms of that because you can be scheduled both ways. You just have to be ready. I think I have enough experience that I can handle it, but for sure, I mean, it's just facts. We have less time to recover. For sure you're going to miss some hours of sleep.

Q. Do you regulate your sleep? Do you keep track of it? Are you aware of it?

IGA SWIATEK: I'm aware of everything at this stage. We're professionals.

Q. Some players have been talking about tennis is such a difficult sport to be good at and what you have to go through to make it as a professional. Would you recommend tennis to young kids? Because some of these players would say, I wouldn't do that because it's just so hard.

IGA SWIATEK: I don't know. I think I'm going to start thinking about it when I'm going to have my own kids, you know. It's hard for me to judge because I'm the one that actually made it.

So for sure it's not the easiest sport. Also, you need to like to be individually. I know many people that would fit better probably in some sport with a team. I guess you have to -- I mean, parents are to judge, and it would be nice if they wouldn't force this on a kid because at some point their children are going to figure it out on their own. They should just kind of look at them with open-minded kind of approach and not being stubborn about just picking one sport, and that's it.

I don't know what I would say, honestly. I guess it always starts from having fun. Then if the person is good enough, they may try being pro, and then I mean, this person is going to become an adult, and will decide on its own, so yeah.