Sabalenka Credits Swiatek For Inspiring Her To Improve

| by Sebastian Dahlman

Aryna Sabalenka defeated Iga Swiatek in the 2023 Madrid Open final and after the match, she credited the Polish superstar for motivating her to get better.

Swiatek and Sabalenka played a few matches already and generally, it's been Iga who came out on top in those ones. Sabalenka has beaten her in the past and she did it again yesterday winning her second Madrid Open trophy overall.

There are many things she admires in Swiatek and just seeing her be as dominant inspired Sabalenka to be better and try to beat her. She admitted after the match that she respect Swiatek a lot as a player and it was evident by how seriously she took this and other matchups.

Yeah, no, I definitely respect her a lot. She's a great player, and what she did last season and what she's kept doing, it's really motivated me a lot to improve, to keep working hard, to, yeah, to keep fighting. Yeah, I know that it's always battling against her. It's always really great matches.

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Unlike last year when Swiatek largely dominated in all of their matchups, this year things are going a bit different. Much of that has to do with how Sabalenka improved and how confident she is in her tennis, especially after Melbourne.

Yeah, of course I respect her a lot. I would say that like this year matches is completely different matches than it was last year. I improved a lot, and I really want to win against her, because she's such a great player.

She is obviously very happy about the way the event and the final went because she won but also the matches looked pretty fun. There is a lot of fighting and back and forth in their matches which is not boring for the crowd either.

To have this win, especially on clay, that's something unbelievable. I really happy that I'm able to fight against her and I'm able to get these wins so it's not like so super boring for people to watch our matches.

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