Iga Swiatek won the first set against Yulia Putintseva at the 2024 Wimbledon Championships, but as quickly as she won that one, the reigning world number one lost the next two.
This match was a proper case of a win slipping away from someone’s hands in a matter of a few minutes because the Polish player looked very confident in the first set of that match.
She didn’t look as confident as the match was slipping away from her, and it happened very quickly, leaving the World No. 1 player very frustrated. It was a matchup she could have won, and who knows what might have happened in the next few rounds?
She might not have won the event but would have been in contention. And that’s why after the match, Swiatek lamented that she allowed Putintseva to get back into the match.
“I totally let her come back to the game in the second set. I shouldn’t have done that. I made some mistakes, as well. But for sure, she used her chance.”
Swiatek seemed to have diagnosed what went wrong quickly, or so it seems. After the match, she spoke about fatigue, admitting that she didn’t rest properly after the exhausting clay season and Roland Garros. The Polish player skipped all three weeks of action and didn’t play a single grass event prior to the major at SW19.
“I feel like on grass I need little bit more of that energy to keep being patient and accept some mistakes. Like mentally, I didn’t really do that well on this tournament.”
“I need to recover better after clay court season, both physically and mentally. I know what I did wrong after Roland Garros. I didn’t really rest properly. I’m not going to make this mistake again.”
While still the best in the world, Swiatek always experiments with grass. She improves on it every year, but there is a lot more work to be done if she wants to lift a major in London.
