Iga Swiatek may pick and choose tournaments without World No.1 focus: "But I’m at this stage where I want to play everything"

Iga Swiatek breezed past her opener at the 2024 Indian Wells Open defeating Danielle Collins 6-3, 6-0 to book a repeat of her Australian Open loss to Linda Noskova on Sunday. But given the pressure of being World Number One, the Pole admitted that she may in future miss tournaments to recover and rest and give precedence to others.

Swiatek has continuously played since her tennis rise and has often hit out at scheduling issues both at tournaments and also the WTA Calendar with minimal rest between tournaments and the off-season getting shorter and shorter. The 22-year-old could as a result employ a similar method to a certain Novak Djokovic who in order to remain at the top only plays and mostly wins the big tournaments.

"Maybe in the future it will be smarter to become this kind of player who is missing some tournaments, but really focusing on the important ones," said Swiatek.

"Really scheduling your calendar in a way that you are not rushing to get points or anything. But you’re really doing it step-by-step like some of the top players—older and more experienced ones—I’m still kind of thinking about it."

"But I’m at this stage where I want to play everything. Especially the tournaments where I know I felt comfortable at. For sure before the Olympics it would be hard for me to decide I’m gonna miss this one. Just to stay fresh and have appropriate time for recovery. So we’ll see but if it’s gonna be necessary we may do that."