Iga Swiatek talked about the impact of long breaks in tennis and how she struggles to stay concentrated during matches in the wake of her rain-interrupted match on Thursday.
Swiatek produced a gutsy performance in testing conditions to win the French Open final rematch against Karolina Muchova 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 and booked her spot in the last eight of the Canadian Open. As a consequence, she'll also cement her number one spot at least for one more week.
Swiatek later admitted in her presser, she arrived at the IGA Stadium in Montreal (the acronym is not related to the Polish star) at around 9:30 in the morning, but after two rain interruptions, she left the premises over 10 hours later.
In the time players exited the court during the interruption, Swiatek spoke of her customary routine before the resumption of play. She says reading a book in a quiet room helps her to relax, elevate her energy levels and keep her sanity.
"9:30 or something (I got here). Well, I mostly read a book, and there's a quiet room here, so I stayed there. But for sure it wasn't easy to kind of get the energy level up and relax to save energy. I wasn't sure if we were actually going to play, but the tournament was pretty confident that the rain is going to stop. So I just tried to save energy, and yeah, it worked."
"I think, yeah, what I said at the beginning, like getting the adrenaline up. I'm still a little bit jet-lagged, so for sure being concentrated again, you know, after such a long day. But, on the other hand, sometimes when the conditions are more tricky, sometimes it's easier because you just kind of go all in, and you don't think about other stuff."
Curiously, a reporter then asked what book Swiatek was reading during her mid-match break due to rain.
"I mean, that's, again, the time when I don't know the English title. Give me one sec. I started it yesterday. Wait. In English. "Cry of the Kalahari."
0 Comments