World No.1 Iga Swiatek has withdrawn from this week's Mutua Madrid Open, citing a right shoulder injury.
"Basically, it's not like we have some drama because everything is okay," Swiatek told reporters at Media Day in Madrid. "You can see in Stuttgart that basically I'm doing fine. We just thought that this is the best decision for me to recover properly because I didn't really have time to recover after all these tournaments. After each of them I had like two days to chill out and then I had to come back to work and adjust to so many different things in every place.
"So basically, right now I feel like this is the best decision for us to get ready for Rome and have the peak of my form in Roland Garros."
🎾Unfortunately my team and I decided that I need to withdraw from Madrid. I hope to see you next year.
— Iga Świątek (@iga_swiatek) April 27, 2022
🎾Razem z moim teamem zdecydowaliśmy, że niestety wycofam się z turnieju w Madrycie. pic.twitter.com/SQ4lJUwhPd
The 20-year-old Polish star is riding a 23-match win streak after winning her fourth consecutive title at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. The win on indoor clay came after becoming the first player to win the first three WTA 1000 events of the season at the Qatar Total Open, BNP Paribas Open and Miami Open. By winning Indian Wells and Miami back-to-back in March, Swiatek became the fourth and youngest woman to win the Sunshine Double.
Madrid Preview: Osaka, Andreescu look to build momentum in Madrid
Set to play as the top seed in Madrid, Swiatek was due to open her tournament on Friday against a qualifier. The next player to be seeded, Leylah Fernandez, will move to Swiatek's place at the top of the draw.
"I wanted to play it really badly, honestly," Swiatek said. "But sometimes you just have to make the smartest decision possible. My heart was like, 'Hey, Iga, this is Madrid.' I only had one chance to play here, and I feel like I could do better. So I wanted to improve the result that I had last year.
"But I'm pretty happy that my team sometimes is also taking a lot of responsibility. I trust in them and I know that they're going to make the right decisions because I've never had a situation, in terms of planning and in terms of looking more to the future and not what's going on right now, I've never had a situation when their decision was wrong.
"So basically I trust them completely and I feel like just a couple of days off and then having time to actually practice a little bit more and focus on the technical stuff is going to do me only good."
The Madrid Open is the first WTA 1000 event of the clay season. Main-draw play begins on Thursday. For a full analysis of the draw, click here.
Swiatek's next tournament will be the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, where she is the defending champion. Rome begins on May 9.
