Iga Swiatek congratulated Mikaela Shiffrin and placed her on the same level as Serena Williams, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic.
The current world No. 1 congratulated the alpine skier on her 87th World Cup victory, surpassing the record held by Ingemar Stenmark of 86 victories achieved in 1989. The American is the alpine skier, male or female, with the most races won in the history of the World Cup. After an impressive match debut in Indian Wells, where Swiatek defeated Claire Liu 6-0, 6-1, the Polish player spoke about Shiffrin's achievements and compared her to Serena Williams and the big-3:
"Any of the Big 3 guys and Serena, I think. Yeah, she just dominated the sport. But on the other hand, the Big 3 had each other to kind of compete against each other, and she's like dominating," world No. 1 said. "She's like better than anyone."
Although she acknowledged that she is not an expert, the three-time Grand Slam champion said that Shiffrin's talent is evident.
"I don't know a lot about the technique but even I can see with my eyes that, yeah, she has this huge talent. I think she's working much better than -- she's, like, making everything too, like -- sorry. To like opt- -- she's making everything to optimize her potential and to just ski well mentally, physically, and technically,"
Swiatek is now preparing to face Canadian Bianca Andreescu in the third round of Indian Wells, seeking to advance on the path to repeating the crown achieved in 2022.