"I had to force myself to do it": Iga Swiatek stays away from social media in bid to avoid negativity

Iga Swiatek rose at a young age to prominence and only at the age of 22 has won 19 WTA titles including four Grand Slams. Already accruing accolade after accolade, Swiatek has gone from somebody who can walk on the street normally to a global sporting superstar.

With that the perception changes and also how she protects herself. She admitted as her Stuttgart campaign begins that she has taken herself off social media apart from to post her Instagram and Twitter content. But in doing so, she admits that it was a struggle at first.

“It’s pretty easy for me to cut off all these things that are, like, screaming these things, like social media or everything,” the Pole said. “During the tournaments, I try to not go there too much. I’m just posting my stuff and not really going on Twitter or Instagram.

“Actually at the beginning I kind of had to force myself to do it. Now it feels comfortable. Now there are actually so many things that I really don’t understand on the Internet that are weird and not really true, it’s better for me to stay away from it a little bit. In terms of the expectations from the outside, that’s it. But I have my expectations. I would say if I feel like I didn’t manage expectations well overall, it’s because I didn’t manage my expectations. The ones from the outside, they really don’t matter that much because I made huge work to manage it and to not really care about them.

“Still sometimes it hits you, especially when you’re tired and you know you did your best, but still people are scrutinising you. They don’t know the full truth, what’s going on off the court, as well. Sometimes it’s not easy. I already kind of understand how the world works, and I’m not expecting that it’s going to change. For sure it would be nice if people remember that we’re still human. Yeah, it’s not possible to win every tournament.”