Iga Swiatek arrived in London as the world number one on the WTA Tour, and it’s one of the reasons why she doesn’t consider herself an underdog.
However, the Pole still understands that her grass tennis needs a lot of work. Swiatek hasn’t had the best grass experience so far in her career, even though she had a decent run at Wimbledon last year.
Last year was the best grass tennis she’s ever played in her career, and she’ll likely only get better. Former world no. 1 on the ATP Tour, Mats Wilander spoke very optimistically about her chances at Wimbledon this year, and former WTA legend Chris Evert also backed her to have a good Wimbledon.
She, too, expects some solid things because she doesn’t want to call herself an underdog when asked by the media if she is one. At the same time, she pointed out that she needs to improve on grass because she’s obviously not quite there yet.
“I mean, it’s hard for me to be considered as an underdog anywhere now, but for sure, I feel like I really need to focus on the process of being a better player here and learning how to play the best kind of tennis here on grass and not the expectations that come with my ranking so that’s what I’m going to do.”
A lack of familiarity with grass is the main culprit for her bad results on the surface. Everything she does well is based around clay, which plays very differently from grass, so just getting used to that will help her to unlock her game.
Her talent was never doubted, and she showed it in the juniors in 2018 when she won the trophy in the Wimbledon girls’ singles competition. Now, it’s about backing it up in the pros, something she hasn’t had too much trouble with.
