CINCINNATI -- World No. 1 Iga Swiatek is ready to get back to work. Following a whirlwind that began on European clay in April and intensified through the Paris 2024 Olympics, the 23-year-old Polish star has felt the pressure of her season grow week by week.
Now, with a bronze medal from Paris in hand, she’s embracing the chance to unwind and recharge in the relatively calmer atmosphere of the Cincinnati Open.
Cincinnati: Scores | Draws | Order of Play
"I literally felt after the Olympics that I need to kind of reset and also just focus on getting my technique back together and just grinding on court," Swiatek told reporters ahead of the tournament, which begins on Tuesday.
"Here is the perfect place to do it. It feels a little bit less crazy, but on the other hand, even before the tournament, there are many people and a lot of fans. So you still feel that it's an important tournament anyway."
A semifinalist last year, Swiatek is the top seed in Cincinnati, the seventh WTA 1000 tournament of the Hologic WTA Tour season and the second of the North American hard-court summer. Along with the National Bank Open, which concludes on Monday in Toronto, the back-to-back WTA 1000 events wind the tour toward the fourth and final Grand Slam of the season at the US Open.
In a regular year, top players would have earned a bit of rest after Wimbledon before putting in a solid training block ahead of the current swing. But with the majority of players participating at the Olympics, preparation was cut short. Swiatek did not have time to stop home and repack.
Which means she still has all her Paris souvenirs in her bag:
"It was pretty stressful and it wasn't easy," Swiatek said, reflecting on her Olympic experience. "But I'm happy that I could leave Paris with a medal and with a lot of knowledge about myself. The most important thing for me was to learn from this experience.
"I was proud of myself and I was happy that I could deal with all this pressure and still get a medal. It wasn't like a normal tournament, for sure."
Swiatek can now breathe. Being able to focus on her daily practice and have the rest of her days free has already proven restful. Still, the challenge remains. She is a four-time champion at hard-court WTA 1000 events, but she has yet to make the final in either Canada or Cincinnati. She’ll be working on adjusting to the faster conditions while also getting accustomed to the lighter Wilson Regular Duty Balls, which the tournament has reintroduced this year.
"We haven't played with these particular balls in two years," Swiatek said. "I think they're lighter. They lose heaviness after a while, because the hair from the balls is just gone after, like, 15 minutes.
"But I played with these in 2022. So you just need to kind of remember how it was. And with all the changes in the surface and the balls, you can't expect that you're going to just make constant progress. You need to focus more on adjusting. And that's what I'm going to do now."
When a reporter reminded the five-time major champion that she won the 2022 US Open with these balls, Swiatek looked embarrassed.
"I know," she said. "I don't know how I did that."
This week, Swiatek is spending her 116th week as the World No.1. She captured her fourth Roland Garros title in May and has already won four WTA 1000 titles this season -- in Doha, Indian Wells, Madrid and Rome.
Earlier this month, she became the first player to secure her spot at the WTA Finals Riyadh, where she will return as the defending champion. To have a chance at that title defense, Swiatek will first get back to basics.
"I know that the first tournament on hard court is not going to be easy," Swiatek said, "so I'm going to try to treat it as a practice tournament, but not in a way that I don't care -- more in a way that I want to implement all the stuff that I practiced on. I think it's the best approach for me now."
