MIAMI — Iga Swiatek sits in a cavernous hallway beneath Hard Rock Stadium, taking a sip of coffee. The world No. 1 is feeling fresh after a coast-to-coast trip from Indian Wells to Miami and a much-needed two-day break to browse her bookstores and soak up some sun.
“First sip of coffee,” Swiatek said. “Always good.”
Swiatek joined the WTA Insider Podcast after the BNP Paribas Open where he won his 19th career title and his second at Indian Wells. The win gives the 22-year-old from Poland the chance to join Stefanie Graf as the only women to win the Sunshine Double twice.
For some players, the challenge is to do something they've never done before. Four-time major champion Naomi Osaka thinks so. Osaka has won the US Open and Australian Open twice.
“I don't think I know yet if I can achieve it, but when I finally do it, it's like a surprise and a relief at the same time,” Osaka said. “I think knowing that you have already achieved something gives you an inner confidence.”
Swiatek, also a four-time major champion, says it's actually been tougher the second time around.
“It's definitely been a lot harder to win a Grand Slam again and again,” Swiatek said on the WTA Insider podcast. “You already know that you are capable, so you feel like nothing can hold you back.
“But on the other hand, because you're competing against so many great athletes, you're going to make mistakes and lose sometimes. And when that happens, you're more disappointed. That's how it feels. That's what I'm more scared of.''
Listen to Swiatek's full Champions Corner interview on the WTA Insider Podcast below.
Swiatek won't turn 23 until the end of May, but he's already won multiple times in five tournaments. Simona Halep is the only active player in the past decade to match this feat. Swiatek has won the French Open and Doha three times, and Indian Wells, Rome and Stuttgart twice. When she won in Doha last month, she became the first player to win the tournament three times in a row since Serena Williams took Miami by storm from 2013 to 2015.
Swiatek hopes to add Miami to that list within two weeks. She won the 2022 tournament, becoming the youngest woman to sweep the Sunshine Double. She will begin the 2024 season with her six-game winning streak at Hard Rock Stadium intact. She missed the tournament last year due to injury.
“I'm usually someone who overanalyzes, so I feel like I'm good at changing the way I think,” Swiatek said. “I have a lot of ideas, but some of them are not useful when I want to perform well.
“That's the most important thing for me during tournaments. Even during a match where I'm leading 3-0, I still try to kind of reset and get back to where I was when I first started. I try to think of it as a blank slate.''What happened 10 minutes ago doesn't really matter to me, just as what happened last week doesn't really matter to me.
“I’m in Miami, I’m in a different place, but I’m taking it step by step and now I want to work on my first game.”
Once all the pieces fall into place, Swiatek will find himself in the zone on and off the court. She says it's not a scientific process and some weeks are harder to stay focused than others. But instead of fighting the noise, Swiatek has learned to embrace it.
“There were tournaments where I had these annoying thoughts and it was much more difficult to work on,” Swiatek said. “But there are some matches like Indian Wells where you get through it and you know you're doing the right job and it worked out. That's why I was so proud of myself after the tournament. Because I didn't question myself” about things that often negatively affected my performance.
“I was really in a zone, but not in a zone like when everything was going well, but in a zone where I was just focused on making it work and how to do it. There's no recipe, there's just one.''Maybe in the future, with experience, it will get a little easier. ”
