Iga Swiatek sent a pointed message to those who piled pressure on her before she ended her 13-month title drought at Wimbledon in dominant fashion, double-bagelling Amanda Anisimova in 57 minutes. The former world No.1 has had a tough season, dropping down the rankings and failing to lift a trophy. She couldn’t perform on her favourite surface, clay, and came to the grass with few expectations.
But the 24-year-old reached her first final in over a year at Bad Homburg just two days before Wimbledon started, and she’s now lifted the Venus Rosewater Dish for the first time in her career. Now a six-time Grand Slam champion, Swiatek told her critics: “Leave me alone.”
Swiatek hired Wim Fissette as coach at the end of last season. A ‘super-coach’ who guided the likes of Naomi Osaka and Simona Halep to Major titles, he had yet to collect any silverware with the Pole until now.
During her victory speech at SW19 on Saturday, Swiatek noted that they had proven themselves together. And she doubled down in her post-match press conference with a very direct message to those who criticised her and her team over the last few months.
“Well, honestly, the thing is that we as public people and as athletes, we can’t really react to everything what’s going on. We got to focus on ourselves,” the newly-crowned Wimbledon champion said.
“Obviously sometimes it’s easier to do that, sometimes it’s harder. For sure the past months, how the media sometimes describe me, and I got to say unfortunately Polish media, how they treated me and my team, it wasn’t really pleasant.
“I hope they will just leave me alone and let me do my job because obviously you can see that we know what we are doing, and I have the best people around me. I have already proved a lot. I know people want more and more, but it’s my own process and my own life and my own career.
“Hopefully I’m going to have a freedom from them, as well, to let me do my job the way I want it.”
Swiatek had a newfound freedom at the All England Club this fortnight. The eighth seed has been cracking jokes about her towel-stealing habits and her unusual post-match snack of strawberries and pasta.
That freedom may have been down to the lack of expectations Swiatek has on grass, even for herself, despite being the 2018 junior girls’ champion and a former quarter-finalist here. And it helped her thrive.
She added: “Even if finally no one was telling me to win everything, so coming here, yeah, as I said at the beginning, I could really focus on getting better and developing as a player rather than everybody just asking me to win, win, and nothing is good besides winning.
“Even if it was too big of a story, I kind of enjoyed that because expectations were a bit lower.”
It also means the Wimbledon title means even more to Swiatek. “For sure it’s a lot, especially after a season with a lot of ups and downs and a lot of expectations from the outside that I didn’t really match winning Wimbledon,” she explained.
“It’s something that is just surreal. I feel like tennis keeps surprising me, and I keep surprising myself.
“I’m really happy with the whole process, how it looked like from the first day we stepped on a grass court.
“Yeah, I feel like we did everything for it to go in that direction without expecting it, just working really hard. It means a lot, and it gives me a lot of experience. Yeah, I don’t even know. I’m just happy.”
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