Iga Swiatek went as far as digging into her wardrobe - on the advice of her coach - to secure a come-from-behind win over Qinwen Zheng to progress into Friday's quarterfinals at the 2023 Cincinnati Masters.
The Polish World No. 1 was in deep trouble after a poor display in the first set saw Zheng break her serve three times to win the first set 6-3. But Swiatek was able to regroup and channel that frustration of losing a one-sided first set into positive energy as she dropped just two games in sets 2 and 3 to complete the turnaround.
Asked after the match whether her change of outfit was behind the win, Swiatek said she listened to the words of her coach, who a few months back proposed the idea of switching outfits after losing a set. It's unclear if Swiatek recalled these words by checking through her notebook which was at the center of attention a few days ago.
But during the set break, Swiatek switched from an all-white to an all-black outfit, and this inspired move worked, according to her. She stormed back to win quite routinely in the end and set up a mouthwatering quarterfinal against freshly minted Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova.
"The key to changing my outfit or? I mean it's because of my coach. He told me a couple of months ago after losing a set, it might be a good idea to change outfits so you can kinda reset and go into the second set with a different vibe. I thought this was bullsh*t. But it worked! So thank you, coach."
Swiatek is currently spending her 72nd week as WTA's No. 1, ranking in 10th place among the players with the most weeks at No. 1. She was able to improve to 60-17 at WTA 1000 level (77.9%), ranking second behind Serena Williams in that regard.
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