When the #1 was first positioned subsequent to Iga Swiatek within the WTA world rankings final March, the Pole had received her second title on the bounce at Indian Wells. Nonetheless, that the then top-ranked Ashleigh Barty’s sudden retirement handed it to her would make the unusual coronation carry an asterisk with it.
Had Swiatek really earned it? Was she, in its most simple sense, the world’s greatest lively feminine singles tennis participant? 9 months on, that query has been emphatically erased by the eight titles and two Grand Slams from the Pole’s dance of dominance in 2022.
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Now for an additional query: how far can Swiatek go together with this dominance?
Half to that reply may floor over the subsequent couple of weeks on the Australian Open beginning in Melbourne on Monday. It’s the place she kicks off her season-opening Grand Slam because the undisputed world No 1 and the largely unchallenged lady to beat from final season.
The 21-year-old, although, has been somewhat underwhelming on the Australian Open, and can search pleasure from the Completely happy Slam to proceed her stretch of supremacy.
A second-round exit in her first look at Melbourne Park in 2019 was adopted by a few departures from the fourth spherical. A extra optimistic semi-final run unfolded final yr earlier than Swiatek was packed off by Danielle Collins 6-4, 6-1 in what she would later describe because the “quickest balls” she had ever confronted.
Swiatek has by no means solely felt at house in these sooner courts Down Below blazing within the sweltering Aussie summer season. Take these three-set tussles with unseeded Sorana Cirstea and Kaia Kanepi en path to her semifinals present final yr and distinction them with the breezy strolls to the French Open titles. Or the 6-2, 6-2 battering she acquired—the sort she’d often hand it to opponents final yr—by the hands of American Jessica Pegula on the United Cup earlier this month that introduced out her tears on courtroom once more.
We haven’t seen them since her second-round defeat on the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and after a loss on the WTA Finals later that yr. It’s when Swiatek felt, in her personal phrases for The Gamers’ Tribune, being judged, “exhausted mentally and bodily” and “ashamed” of her reactions as a champion, because the 2020 Rolland Garros winner was then with little to again it up.
However when Barty selected to stroll away from skilled tennis at 25, Swiatek gushed with feelings from an unlikely join of selecting to do issues “in a different way”.
“And generally the most effective answer just isn’t giving a sh*t, truthfully,” Swiatek, the WTA Participant of the Yr in 2022, wrote in her essay revealed on Thursday. “I’m sorry to curse, but when there may be some secret to my success within the final yr, it’s giving myself that freedom to not care what folks assume.
“That’s what led me to profitable one other Grand Slam and the third one. That’s what led me to No 1. Letting go.”
And letting it rip. A twenty first century document 37-match win streak that started in February and lasted until the Wimbledon in July, a second French Open title in June, a primary US Open crown in September. Her third Grand Slam title in New York gave her the assumption that she had the sport to succeed past the purple grime, and the hard-court titles of 2022 in Qatar, Indian Wells, Miami, New York and San Diego solely reiterated that.
“For me, it’s all about staying sort of stable and truly not altering quite a bit,” Swiatek mentioned on Saturday. “It labored, so why would I modify quite a bit?”
Whereas the sport’s there to rise Down Below, it’s about whether or not Swiatek can even carry that psychological freedom into the brand new season beginning with the Australian Open litmus check.
If she does, there may nonetheless be no stopping Swiatek, the world No 1. No asterisk connected.