Iga Swiatek has opened up on losing her position as World No. 1 after her defeat in the Round of 16 at the US Open saw her be overtaken by Aryna Sabalenka in the WTA Ranking.
Swiatek was unable to defend her title at Flushing Meadows, losing to twentieth seed Jelena Ostapenko in the fourth round of the New York major. This defeat was particularly surprising because the 22-year-old had seemed to be on very good form up until that point.
In her opening round, Swiatek dominated the match from start to finish, beating Rebecca Peterson 6-0, 6-1. The Polish player then went on to defeat Daria Saville 6-3, 6-4, before sweeping past Kaja Juvan in the third round 6-0, 6-1. However, her run came to an abrupt end when Ostapenko fought back to win their fourth-round clash 3-6, 6-3, 6-1.
This loss means that Swiatek will not maintain the WTA Ranking points she received for winning last year's American Slam and that second seed Sabalenka will become World No. 1 for the first time in her career.
This is regardless of whether or not the Belarusian wins her own Round of 16 against Daria Kasatkina, as all Sabalenka needed to do in order to usurp Swiatek was reach the same stage of the tournament as her, although she will no doubt be aiming to progress on to the quarter-finals and beyond.
Speaking after her defeat, Swiatek reflected on losing the top spot, saying that although it meant a lot to her, she will try to focus more on winning tournaments than on her place in the rankings.
"For me, I don't know, usually I'm not looking at numbers, but overall I love them. I would love to, like, extend this record a little bit longer. This is something that when I was younger, I actually kind of wanted to break some record or have something.
"It meant a lot, obviously. It was great. On the other hand this last part, it was pretty exhausting. I still need to do all this stuff that my team and all these great players like Roger [Federer] or Novak [Djokovic] or Rafa [Rafael Nadal] are telling about: you just have to focus on the tournaments, not the rankings," she said.
She also added that she wants to work on developing as a player and is happy to have some time to 'reset' a little after a tough season.
"For sure when it happens, when you lose it, there are some sad emotions. Yeah, as I said at the beginning, all these great players know it's going to come back if you're going to work hard, focus on the right things, just develop as a player.
"For sure besides this match, which was pretty weird, I feel like I am progressing as a player. I have more skills. This season was - is still - the hardest part is already done for me, but this season was really tough and intense. It's not easy to cope with all of this stuff, yeah. I'm just happy that I will have time to reset a little bit," she continued.
Next week, Iga Swiatek will pass the baton of the world no. 1 to Aryna Sabalenka. But what an incredible journey it has been. 75 consecutive weeks where she won 10 tournaments, including three Majors, two WTA 1000, four WTA 500, and one WTA 250 title, the latest one in Warsaw,…
