"It doesn't really matter for me": Swiatek in no rush to reclaim World Number One spot from Sabalenka

Iga Swiatek revealed that she doesn't feel an urgent need to regain the world No. 1 ranking from Aryna Sabalenka and that it has taken some pressure off her.

During her arrival at the Beijing Open, the Polish player participated in a press conference ahead of her participation in the last WTA 1000 event of the year. This marks the first time since the Miami Open in March 2022, where she defeated Naomi Osaka in the final, that she is not the world No. 1.

As the second seed this time, Iga Swiatek is playing her first tournament since her early exit from the US Open in the round of 16, which prevented her from defending her title and allowed Sabalenka to claim the top spot in the rankings.

However, Swiatek appeared calm about losing her 75-week streak as the world's best tennis player, making her the tenth player with the most time at No. 1. She commented that she feels less pressure when she's the one chasing Sabalenka rather than the other way around.

"I think it's a little bit easier to come back to the mindset of chasing somebody because that's what we've been doing our whole lives,"

"There's only one person who's at No.1. I think this was harder to get used to last season.

"But honestly, it doesn't really matter for me because after US Open, I knew I'm going to drop to second position. I stopped thinking about rankings at all because I felt like there's some baggage off my shoulders. I could focus more on just working and kind of getting back to the more peaceful and normal rhythm of practicing."

"It's different because you're just focusing on the future, not on defending something," she said. "I'm kind of using that.

"But overall I'm also worried that it's the last tournaments of the season, so I'm not going to be 100 percent fresh. My main goal is to do some stuff differently on court in terms of the technique and tactics, to develop as a player, not really chase points or rankings."

Swiatek also spoke about the two weeks she took for training before starting the Asian tour, as she felt the need to work on various aspects of her game, she mentioned:

"I realized how much work I have to do in pre-season because there are a lot of things I want to improve," Swiatek said. "My coach also has a good plan. Sometimes it's not possible to do all of that in two weeks. But we kind of started doing it.

"I don't know how it's going to look on matches obviously, because it's totally different story," Swiatek said. "I was feeling a little bit rusty in Tokyo because after that reset, after three weeks without playing tournaments, you can feel like that a little bit.

"But, yeah, it doesn't really matter for me. I'll just do my best no matter what."