Iga Świątek (2nd WTA) has just finished participating in the United Cup, where she was again the leader of the Polish national team and led it to the final (where the 23-year-old lost her only match, against Coco Gauff). It was her first start in the new season, which is a kind of new opening for her.
Iga Świątek talked about what affects her. She returned to the high-profile case
The tennis player lost the end of last year due to a high-profile doping case – during the August tournament in Cincinnati, she was diagnosed with minimal levels of trimetazidine, which resulted in her being provisionally suspended after the US Open. She managed to prove that the substance was taken accidentally (it came from contaminated melatonin), which resulted in a month's punishment and she was able to return to play at the WTA Finals (where she was eliminated in the group). Then, for the first time in her career, she played in the final tournament of Billie Jean King and helped the Polish team reach the semi-finals (defeat against the Italians). In the meantime, she changed her coach, after starting in New York, Tomasz Wiktorowski was replaced by Wim Fissette.
Świątek returned to those events in a conversation with her on-court rival Caroline Garcia (48th WTA) and Borja Duran (Garcia's fiancé) in the Tennis Insider Club podcast. Duran asked: – You mentioned that if you didn't play in the Billie Jean King Cup after a long season, you would be criticized a lot. How do you deal with this external pressure, expectations and even hate. Does this affect you?
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– I think so. I try not to spend too much time on the Internet, I just post my stuff and disappear, I don't read anything. Because of this, there is less chance that it will affect me – began the second-ranked woman in the world ranking. And then she talked openly about recent events and her feelings.
– Honestly, now I had the most difficult situation with the media and the way they approached me in Poland. Because there was nothing abroad. I didn't play in China because of my (doping – ed.) case. Everyone knows it now, but no one knew before. Nobody said a word about it abroad. It was fine with them that I took a break and missed two tournaments. But in Poland? It was crazy, she said. Although going back to that period, you can find foreign articles discussing, for example, the “difficult moments off the court” of the then leader of the world ranking.
Iga Świątek stole everything from the media. “I didn't feel well, I had a difficult time”
The 23-year-old did not hide her great resentment towards Polish journalists. – The media diagnosed me with mental problems. Disorders, sudden depression, burnout. Suddenly I was kicking everyone off my team. They wrote these articles with clickbait titles that something bad was happening to me because I didn't play in two tournaments. “It was hard because I felt like I had to give them an update of every minute of my life or they would go in a weird direction,” she said.
– Later, when we announced the information about the ongoing investigation, everyone suddenly understood. But during the period when they didn't know it was difficult, I was fighting the hardest battle I had ever had and I didn't feel good. I was having a difficult time, and suddenly the Polish media were chasing me as to why I didn't play in two tournaments, she added.
– There was a lot of hate, everyone immediately judged. I think they write things they would never say to our face. I guess it's part of my job. It shouldn't be like this, the Internet is not going in the right direction, but… – concluded Świątek.