By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Sunday October 1, 2023
Iga Swiatek is the hunter rather than the hunted once again. After dropping to No.2 in the rankings after the US Open the Pole says that it’s a bit of a pressure drop to be out of the No.1 spotlight for a while.
“I think it's a little bit easier to come back to the mindset of chasing somebody because that's what we've been doing our whole lives,” she said at her pre-tournament press conference in Beijing, where she will face Sara Sorribes Tormo in the first round.
“I kind of stopped thinking about rankings at all because I felt like there's some baggage off my shoulders. I could focus more on just working and kind of getting back to the more peaceful and normal rhythm of practicing.”
Swiatek says she feel free to focus on growing and evolving her game right now, something that was harder to do when she was protecting her spot atop the WTA rankings, which she did successfully for 75 weeks.
“It's different because you're just focusing on the future, not on defending something. I'm kind of using that,” she said. “My main goal is to kind of do some stuff differently on court in terms of the technique and tactics to develop as a player, not really chase points or rankings.”
Swiatek, who owns a 56-10 record with four titles in 2023, including her fourth major title at Roland-Garros, says this is not a time to panic. Rather, it is a time for growth. She says she is implementing subtle changes in her game with 2024 in mind, but will need more time after the season to put the pieces of the puzzle exactly where they need to be.
“It's not going to be a lot different because I feel like I'm going in the right direction anyway,” she said. “For sure I used these two weeks of practicing. I realized also how much work I have to do in pre-season because there are a lot of things I want to improve.
“My coach also has a good plan. Sometimes it's not possible to do all of that in two weeks. But we kind of started doing it. It doesn't really matter for me. I'll just do my best no matter what. I'll kind of focus more on myself and on what I want to do on court looking at all these days of practice and what I could try new things.”