"Lower my expectations and treat it as any other event" says Swiatek on title defence mentality

Iga Swiatek will be defending her Roland-Garros title in 2020 and the Polish player is trying to keep pressure on the minimum ahead of the event.

Iga Swiatek made a fairytale run in 2020 to win her maiden grand slam title at Roland-Garros but now she needs to defend it. Swiatek is realistic about the immense pressure that comes with it so she is trying to keep it to a minimum. She said:

"We are just focusing on treating this tournament the same as any other because that's the most important thing. The season is long, and I have played many tournaments until [this] stage, and I'm gonna have many more chances after."

When asked to explain what it means to treating it like any other event she said:

"So I'm just trying to lower my expectations and remember that from the experience of other players it's not easy to be a defending champion, so I'm giving myself time. [Daria] is encouraging me to do that and explaining that it's a good way to approach stuff, because, yeah, it may be really, really stressful, but I just want to be the same competitor like any other girl."

Swiatek has won two titles in 2021 with the most recent one in at the Rome Masters a very impressive and timely one with the French Open around the corner. On that Swiatek said:

"Coming back to the same shape I had during RG & winning 2 titles, that was amazing for me because I'm still not sure if I'm gonna be consistent for the rest of my career. This shows I can actually perform well not only once but I can repeat it. That's the most important thing."

She will start off her campaign against Juvan Kaja who is actually her best friend on the tour. Asked about the match Iga said:

"It's not easy to play against your best friend. It wasn't nice to see that, because one of us is going to lose. But we know each other's game pretty well, so I think the most important thing is gonna be to really be prepared in terms of tactics."