Aryna Sabalenka admitted that Iga Swiatek is a better clay-court player, but that doesn't mean she can't beat her.
Every tennis player prefers different type of surface, mostly because of their qualities. Sabalenka's tennis suits the hard courts the best, and that's also the surface where she had the most success.
On the other hand, Swiatek is one of the best clay-court players we have seen in a very long time, and she's backing it up with every tournament she plays, most recently winning the Madrid Open.
In that final, she beat Sabalenka, who like the Polish player, moved to Rome after the match for another WTA 1000 tournament, and ahead of the Italian Open, the Belarusian discussed her main rivals' qualities.
"Well, I mean, obviously Iga is much better on clay than me, for example. I would say Elena is better on grass. I'm maybe a little bit better on hard court. At the same time I cannot say that it's all about the surface."
"I mean, as the time shows, I can beat them on clay, on hard, on grass. It's not about the surface, I would say. It's about honestly in each match couple of key moments where, like, probably she played better."
Still, despite being aware of the fact that Swiatek is the better clay-court player, Sabalenka also knows that it doesn't mean that the Pole will always beat her on the red dirt, as there are things she can do to counter her.
"For example, last match with Iga, I wouldn't say on those important points I did something wrong, it's just I was doing the right thing, but she was doing it better little bit. It's just about little things."
"Yeah, it's not about the surface. It's a process. You learn from that little mistakes you made during the match, then you go and work on them, you try better next time. It's just little improvements, like little percentage better every day. Hope for the better result."
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