By Richard Pagliaro | June 28, 2021
Iga Swiatek is not only one of tennis’ most talented young players, she’s a studious tennis fan as well.
The 2020 Roland Garros champion plays for her first Wimbledon main-draw win when she faces tricky Hsieh Su-Wei in what could be an entertaining Monday opener.
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Three years ago, Swiatek won the Wimbledon girls’ title. Since then, her lawn exposure is limited.
Swiatek’s grass-court preparation consisted of just two matches—she beat Heather Watson and lost to Daria Kasatkina at Eastbourne—so she’s bolstering her grass game by planning to watch plenty of matches in person. Swiatek says she plans to visit YouTube to study her hero, Rafael Nadal, and his past performances on grass as well as Simona Halep’s inspired run to the 2019 Wimbledon championship.
“For sure in next weeks I’m going to be watching a lot of matches, not only Rafa but especially girls because doing what Rafa is doing is sometimes impossible for women,” Swiatek said. “I’m going to watch Simona for sure and her run when she won.
“Yeah, I’ll try to find some experience from that.I’m actually not the best person to analyze matches and see everything when I’m just watching on the computer screen or in the TV. It would be much easier to watch live. I think it’s going to give me a lot so I’m going to start that.”
The seventh-seeded Swiatek beat Hsieh in their lone meeting at the 2020 Roland Garros. Swiatek partnered Bethanie Mattek-Sands to a French Open round-of-16 doubles win over Hsieh and Elise Mertens earlier this month. Hsieh has a history of knocking off French Open champions at Wimbledon: she toppled world No. 1 Halep at the 2018 Championships and beat Jelena Ostapenko in 2019.
“She’s just unpredictable so you have toalways be ready. There are some players that can play solid and just hold the ball sometimes,” Swiatek said of Hsieh. “But she’s the one that is going to come up with some crazy idea, which is great. That’s why it’s so fun to watch her. But it’s hard to be on the other side of the net.Obviously I played against her on clay last year. Here Ithink it’s going to be different.
“I mean, for sure being really, really low on my legs is going to help. I remember when I played with her on Roland Garros I did that already. Here probably I’m going to be, like, even more low. It’s going to be a hard match.I just think that if my game’s going to be there and if I’m going to be in a good rhythm, if I’m going to approach the ball and not be late to many of the shots, I think I can do it. We’ll see, yeah. It’s going to be tricky.”
Photo credit: Getty