World No.1 Iga Swiatek has continued on her quest for a maiden Australian Open title with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Colombian Camila Osorio to progress to the third round at Melbourne Park.
The three-time Grand Slam champion was rampant on return, breaking on her opponent’s opening two service games of the contest as she raced out to a 4-0 lead in the first stanza.
However, things became a little tricky for the top seed on serve, as Osorio managed to break on two occasions to get her scoreboard ticking over, but would ultimately succumb in all four of her service games to surrender the set.
When it comes to analysing her opponent’s serve or game, the Pole leaves that up to her coach before feeding her the information.
“I'm not analysing a lot. It's usually my coach who does the whole like statistic thing, and he just comes to me and tells me what to do, because I think if I would analyse by myself, it would distract me more,” Swiatek said.
“I'm more focused on technique and I wasn't really overthinking it.
“I knew that even if it's not gonna be like a perfect return, I can always win the point by a rally. I just really felt solid, and that's all.”
Osorio held on her first attempt in the second but Swiatek was in a rampant mood, securing the ascendancy and racing to a 5-1 lead.
The pair would exchange breaks once again as the Pole closed out the contest in just 84 minutes as she booked passage to the third round for the fourth successive year.
On a miserable day at Melbourne Park, the Warsaw exponent was one of the lucky few to play their match with rain pelting the grounds of the season’s opening major.
“I'm in a pretty comfortable position that I was able to, you know, play this match and I knew that it's going to be under the roof so it's not going to get rescheduled,” Swiatek said.
“I think it's really bad for the players that had to wait yesterday whole day here because it's really tiring, and they probably are going to have to stay another day on-site.
“There's nothing I think the tournament organisers can do, but I'm surprised that they didn't put yesterday's matches, like, earlier today on the stadiums, but I don't know how it works.”
At 21 years old, Swiatek has enjoyed more success than most have had in 20-year careers, but she has entered her first full season as the reigning No.1 player in the world which creates new experiences, ones that she will aim to not be distracted by.
“Well, it's not easy, because with that number the expectations are a little bit higher from outside for sure, but also for myself a little bit,” she said.
“I'm trying to manage that properly and trying to kind of stay in my bubble during the tournament so I'm not going to get distracted by all of that.
“I think that I don't want people to like kind of take for granted that if you're World No. 1 that you're going to win everything because we still have to fight for every match and we still have to be really ready for everything.”
Swiatek will await the winner of the contest between Carla Bucsa and 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu.
Comments