Swiatek on RG Defeat: “I Was Super Tense”

It was a tough birthday for Iga Swiatek. The Pole fell in her bid to reclaim the Roland-Garros title, falling to Marta Kostyuk, 7-5, 6-1. 

After Swiatek’s fourth career loss at Roland-Garros, the four-time champion told reporters that she simply felt off. 

“Today I feel like it wasn’t nice after the match, because I know that I can perform better, but today I couldn’t,” she said. “Nothing I can do now except to learn from it and try to work and try to do better next time.

“For sure I lost control of the match, and there was no way for me to come back, because I felt worse and worse. So this is not positive, and this is different than losing to Elina in Rome or to Andreeva in Stuttgart.” 

Tension, internally, is what worked against the six-time major champion, and led to her hitting 13 winners against 39 unforced errors. What went wrong? 

“I lost today because Marta used the opportunity, and I was super tense,” Swiatek said, adding that she plans on getting to the bottom of her issues, but isn’t sure if it will be a quick process. “I feel like I can work on that, at least, and there is a reason, and there is maybe a solution. Maybe it’s not going to take one week or one month. Maybe it’s going to take even a season or something, but I need to believe that I can work through this and not be thrown off so quickly.

“I know that I lost because I was tense, and my body couldn’t really do what my body… the proper things, but it’s not the first time, so yeah, just need to work on it.”

Swiatek drops to 43-4 lifetime at Roland-Garros, and finishes the clay season at 9-4. She did become the first woman to make eight consecutive round of 16 appearances in Paris since Conchita Martinez in 2000.