Tennis

Australian Open: Near-Perfect First-Round Stat Shows Consistency, Says Iga Swiatek

𝔉 The 23-year-old Iga Swiatek has now won each of her first-round matches at all 20 grand slams since the start of the 2020 season

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
Iga Swiatek
Iga Swiatek pictured after her opening win
info_icon

Iga Swiatek is well aware of her near-perfect grand slam first-round record, and only wishes she had not featured at Wimbledon in 2019. (Full Coverage | More Tennis News)

Swiatek kick-started her Australian Open campaign with a 6🅺-3 6-4 win over Katerina Siniakova on Monday.

The 23-year-old💫 has now won each of her first-round matches at all 20 grand slams since the start of the 2020 season.

Indeed, her only first-round loss at a major came at the All꧟ England Club in 2019, when she went down 6-2 7-6 (7-3) to Viktorija Golu💛bic.

She is the only player t𒐪o achieve this feat, and when the sta📖tistic was put to her by Stats Perform, the Pole said: "Yeah, I know [about it]."

Swiatek added with a smile: "I think I only lost once in the first round. It was at Wimbledon in 2019. 🌞I wish I didn't play so my stat would be perfect!

"Yeah, I'm happy [about it]. It shows th♕at I'm consistent. I'm just more confident before a slam, even playing the first match.

"I k🌟now that no matter what's going to happen, I have this kind of [go🦩od] stat. I just need to do what I do and it will go well."

Swiatek ha🦂s not had much luck at the Australian Open, with her deepest run coming in 2022, when she reached the last four.

🌜"Overall the preparation is a bit changed because of a different coach," said the world number two when asked if she had altered her preparations for th🗹e tournament this time around.

"I feel like that was enough of a change. We're obviously working a l🔯ittle bit differently because it's always d⭕ifferent when you change coaches.

"Maybe in the last [few] years, the 📖mistake was for sure not having my own hitting partner. This year I have a hitting partner in my team, but honestly, I wouldn't say my preparation♕ during other years was really bad.

"I for sure felt like my level ꦕwas going down during the tournament, but it is hard to say why. You're not always going to have answers."

CLOSE