Swiatek Reveals She Thought She Was Being Booed During United Cup Match Against Ruud
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A chant from the crowd during her United Cup doubles match against Casper Ruud's Norway left Iga Swiatek confused and made her think she was being booed.
Team Poland's tie against Norway was Swiatek's first appearance of the 2025 season and first WTA tournament since her one-month suspension for testing positive for trimetazidine became public.
That ordeal could have been much worse for Swiatek had further testing not proven her explanation that melatonin tablets she bought were contaminated with trimetazidine. That led to her provisional suspension being lifted on October 4th.
Swiatek admitted to worrying about how other players would react to the doping case. Nick Kyrgios has repeatedly expressed anger about her and ATP world No. 1 Jannik Sinner's cases, recently calling it disgusting for the sport.
However, Swiatek has been happy overall with her colleagues' reactions. The Pole insists that many have been privately supportive and realize that accidental contamination could happen to any of them if they are unlucky.
Feeling reassured by how most players reacted might explain why she found her feet quickly and did not look anxious in her matches against Team Norway. She only dropped one game in the singles against Malene Hengo.
Ruud defeated Hubert Hurkacz to send the tie into a deciding doubles match. Swiatek and Jan Zielinski faced Ruud and Ulrikke Eikeri. The Poles took the opening set, but Ruud and Eikeri claimed the second 6-0.
A nail-biting 10-point tiebreak was won 10-8 by Swiatek and Zielinski to complete a 6-3, 0-6, 10-8 victory. There was a great atmosphere throughout, but Swiatek thought the crowd was being hostile to her during the match.
Some fans chanted "Ruuuuudd" when the Norwegian No. 1 hit good shots, but it sounded like a player being booed. Swiatek spoke afterward about misunderstanding that but still enjoyed playing in front of the vocal crowd in Sydney.
"Well, honestly Polish people are always amazing. I don't take it for granted, but I get used to Polish people being there on the stadium to support us. Honestly I was a bit confused with Casper's surname because apparently they were shouting "Ruud," and I heard they were boos. I'm sorry for that. I misjudged it totally."
"But, yeah, if they were saying "Ruud," I think it was kind of even in terms of the support, and this is what makes our game I think the most interesting when also the crowd is kind of involved. I already played some matches that were even better because of that, so for sure the atmosphere helped us."
"It's always exciting, you know. Honestly this is why I love playing team events and especially United Cup because we have different atmosphere, and I really enjoy that."
