‘I can’t imagine what she must feel’ – Iga Swiatek amazed by Serena Williams’ coolness under the spotlight

The world No. 1 Iga Swiatek believes that only Serena Williams could handle the febrile pre-match atmosphere that surrounded her first-round match of the US Open.

The star-studded Arthur Ashe Stadium was absolutely rocking ahead of the 40-year-old’s 6-3 6-3 win over Montenegro’s Danka Kovinic, and Williams delivered a stirring performance to match the occasion.

The media attention around Williams has been relentless since the 23-time Grand Slam champion announced that she was “evolving away” from tennis, with the US Open believed to be her final tournament.

“I can’t imagine what she must feel having this kind of atmosphere around her and just finishing,” said Swiatek.

“I know she’s doing a tournament, but I feel like yesterday people did so much work to show appreciation to what she’s done.

“It’s pretty amazing. I have never seen something like it. For sure it was like the most popular first round of a slam ever. Yeah, it’s just amazing.

“It shows how much she has changed our sport and how much she has done. I’m pretty happy that she can experience something like that.

“I also feel that not every player would handle that kind of fuss around your first match of the tournament. She’s handling it pretty well, as usual. So that’s just confirmation of how great she is.”

However, while Swiatek presumably watched the build-up to the match, she only managed to tune in for two games when the action started for real.

“It was too much for me even watching that, because, you know, all of the stuff that’s going on around Serena, I realise how she must feel, but she is kind of used to it more than us,” Swiatek continued.

“You know, we never had such attention around us, because she’s just a GOAT. She has it probably for most of her career, so I guess she’s used to it. But for me, just watching that, I was pretty shocked.”

Swiatek was mightily impressive in parts as she cruised past Paolini, making a bagel in the second set having been broken twice in the opening set.

After an inconsistent spell in which she crashed out of Wimbledon at the third round and suffered an exit in the quarter finals of the BNP Paribas Poland Open in Warsaw, Swiatek looked like she was finally recapturing her form as she wrapped up the match in 67 minutes.

“I’m happy with the performance, and I feel like I have better rhythm than in Toronto and Cincinnati so that’s great, I’m trying to enjoy that,” said Swiatek, who was beaten by Madison Keys in the final of the Cincinatti Masters earlier this month.

“For sure in the first set at the beginning, I played a solid game, but I needed to take it up to another level. I did that at the end and in the second set, so I’m proud of that.

“In Cincinnati, [it] was pretty tough, but here was much, much better, and I got a lot of confidence just from practising and hitting the balls in, actually playing better and better every day.

“So I know on matches, being a little bit stressed and tight, it can get a little bit worse, but still, I feel like my level is just better. We’ll see if I’m going to hold on to that.

“I think just we did a huge amount of work before the tournament to work properly but on the other hand also chill out and find a proper balance.

“So that’s the key basically, because, you know, tennis-wise for sure, week by week, it’s easier to get used to these balls. Playing this swing I think is pretty important to play the tournaments before to be ready actually for this one.”

– –