Iga Swiatek: "Last year, I felt a lot of pressure at Wimbledon because I was No. 1"

World No. 1 Iga Swiatek recently recalled how she felt pressure as the top seed at the Wimbledon Championships last year.

Swiatek, the 2023 French Open champion, was upbeat this week about adapting to playing on grass, historically her least successful surface. With the Major at SW19 just two days away, the Pole is ready to win her first grass-court Grand Slam title and her fifth Major overall.

Iga Swiatek sat down for a press conference before beginning her campaign in the British capital, and she was asked to comment on her biggest challenges on grass in terms of her gameplay.

She marked the question as tough and replied that her game has not been very consistent on the surface, as she felt great playing on it for some years and then couldn't really focus on the tournament mentally in 2019 and the years after that.

"Hmmm, That's a tough question because I still feel like, some years I felt really good on grass, like when I was a junior basically, then I had some tournaments that I was hoping to play a little bit better," Iga Swiatek said.

"But I don't know, 2019 I played against Viktorija Golubic. She played a lot of slices. I didn't really get into the tournament. Also mentally I remember I wasn't really focused on that tournament. A year later we didn't play at all because of COVID. Next years, well, it was all pretty tricky because I always had to face some obstacles that weren't only because of the surface or the tournament," she added.

Iga Swiatek then recalled how she felt under pressure during last year's Wimbledon because she was the World No. 1 and thus the top seed. However, she believes that this year she was able to focus more on practicing and, hopefully, can use that in her matches.

"Last year I felt a lot of pressure here because I was No. 1. I don't know. I feel like this time -- actually, that was the first year where I could just focus on practicing, actually learning a lot. So hopefully I'm going to be able to use that on my matches," she said.

This year too, Swiatek is the top seed at Wimbledon, having retained her World No. 1 ranking after winning the French Open.

---

Iga Swiatek withdraws from the Bad Homburg Open just ahead of Wimbledon

Iga Swiatek pictured at the Internazionali BNL D'Italia 2023.

Iga Swiatek was on a 10-match winning streak after beating Anna Blinkova in the Bad Homburg Open quarterfinals on Thursday (June 29).

However, before her semi-final match against Lucia Bronzetti, the Pole took to social media to announce that she will have to withdraw from the tournament due to a fever and possible food poisoning.

She also expressed her hope that she will recover quickly and thanked her fans for their support throughout and wrote:

"I'm so sorry but I have to pull out of my match today. I had a restless night because of some fever and possible food poisoning. I'm not able to perform today and I need to take care of myself. I hope I'll be fine soon. Your support in Bad Homburg was amazing, thank you."