Never going to doubt my strength again: Swiatek after winning 3rd French Open title
Paris [France]: After winning her third French Open crown, World No. 1 Iga Swiatek expressed the satisfaction she felt upon conducting another memorable and successful clay-court season and said that she will never doubt her straight again.
Swiatek, who became the youngest woman to win consecutive titles at Roland-Garros since Monica Seles in 1992, is now one of three active players to own four or more Grand Slam titles, alongside Venus Williams and Naomi Osaka. The Pole on Saturday successfully defended her French Open 2023 crown after a hard-fought win over unseeded Karolina Muchova in the women's singles final.
Swiatek defeated unseeded Karolina Muchova by winning nine of the first 11 games, but her opponent pulled off an incredible comeback to force the match into a third set. But ultimately, Swiatek would prevail late Saturday night in Paris 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 when Muchova double-failed on match point.
"I don't know what I felt. It's hard to describe. But a lot of happiness. I felt suddenly tired of these three weeks. Maybe my matches weren't like physically exhausting, but it's pretty hard to kind of keep your focus for these almost three weeks," Swiatek was quoted as saying by Roland-Garros.
"And also the whole [clay court] swing. Since Stuttgart I haven't been home. So I'm happy that I finished the whole clay court swing so well, and that I kind of survived. I guess I'm never going to kind of doubt my strength again maybe because of that," she added.
Asked by a reporter what she'd like to achieve next in her already storied career, Swiatek declined to give a definitive answer, saying instead that the she only plans to continue on the path of self-improvement.
"I'm not really looking that far. I'm just happy with what happened during these past few weeks. I don't know what I'm capable of," she said.
"I will work day by day to play best game possible and to develop as a player. I'm not setting like any crazy records or goals for myself. I know that keeping it cool is the best way to do it for me - I'm trying more to do that," the 2023 French Open winner said.
For the first time in her career, Swiatek had to play a deciding set in a Grand Slam final in order to defeat Muchova after blowing a lead and dropping the second set.
Swiatek claims she just tried to buckle down and follow her instincts after a poor middle set.
"Honestly, this match was like so long, with so many ups and downs. I kind of stopped thinking about the score. I wanted to use my intuition more, because I knew that I can play a little bit better if I'm going to get a little bit more loosened up. It helped, for sure, in the third set - I just kind of felt like I need to be more courageous and make some good decisions," she said.
