Iga Swiatek began her post-match press conference by addressing fans' criticism in the wake of losing a set to Qinwen Zheng in the Round of 16 of the Cincinnati Masters.
Social media hate is becoming rampant in tennis, and the players have always been the victims of hurtful insults and negative criticism for their performances. While efforts are being made to promote positive online behavior, Swiatek told internet users to be mindful and thoughtful of what they write on the internet.
Just a week ago, Croatia's Borna Coric was forced to temporarily deactivate his Instagram account after receiving a barrage of attacks on the Internet after losing in the first round of the Canadian Open. In Swiatek's case, dropping the first set to Qinwen Zheng in Cincinnati attracted just as much hate and criticism.
"The amount of hate and criticism that me and my team get after even losing a set is just ridiculous. I want to kind of encourage people to be more thoughtful when they comment on the Internet."
"It's kind of sad for me to see that people I work with and myself, we are really judged. I would like to encourage people to be more thoughtful and to also focus on the positive side of what we are doing, because today, even though I didn't start the match well, I would love for people to see how I problem-solved and how I really got out of trouble."
Swiatek can't understand the source of the hate, whether these are tennis fans or not, and who have set the bar so high that even losing a final is subjected to insults and derogatory language.
The Pole admitted that she was immensely proud to reach back-to-back finals in Doha and Dubai earlier this season, winning one title and losing the latter, but she was still put under the microscope online.
"I also saw that after Dubai and Doha, when I won a tournament and then was in the final, I was pretty proud of my results but people really just saw the last match and that I lost in the final, and they shouldn't."
"The thing is that I'm putting a lot of energy for it not to hit too deeply, but I just realized that sometimes people that - I don't know if they are my fans or not, but obviously they want me to play better - they cause me to really kind of waste a lot of energy to ignore them."
Some tennis players are easily affected by such hateful comments and this can be detrimental to players' mental well-being and performance. Swiatek wishes such fans would see how much she sacrifices behind the scenes in order to be where she is today, just so they wouldn't be so quick to judge.
"It's just unnecessary because I know how much work we are putting in and how much everybody sacrifices, me and my team. I wish people could also see that and not judge straightforwardly."
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