Swiatek nearly saw career over before it started: "I still didn't believe that I'm going to be a pro"

Iga Swiatek was a very promising junior in 2017 when she suffered an ankle injury that left her in doubt about whether she would continue her tennis career.

It was the year 2017 and Swiatek was one of the most promising juniors in the world. Everything was working out well for her until she injured her ankle. It was a bad injury that required surgery and left her away from the sport for an extended period of time. It was a tricky situation because there were moments when Swiatek wondered whether she would be able to continue playing tennis:

"Well, at that point of my life, basically the problem was that I thought I'm not going to, like, play tennis anymore, because I was a teenager and it was a big thing already after surgery. It's not like I always knew that I'm going to be a tennis player. I feel like every year I needed to kind of prove myself that I'm going in the right direction. I still didn't believe that I'm going to be a pro until I actually came to WTA and won some matches."

Read also

2023 Rome Open ATP Prize Money with €7,705,780 on offer

She added:

"Also there was, like, the issue of if we're going to have money to continue, start like a little bit from the beginning, because this is something that suddenly may change your life path. I'm pretty happy that we managed, me and my dad, to make me come back. He also found resources for me to be able to train and have practices and find coaches."