MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Iga Swiatek supplied a revealing take a look at her emotional state in current months — which included a doping suspension, coming to grips with figuring out she won’t return to No. 1 this season and “three weeks crying each day” — in a prolonged social media submit Monday that additionally mentioned on-line criticism she obtained for practically hitting a ball boy by smacking a ball in anger between factors.
“I see there’s been loads of current speak about modifications in my on-court habits and feelings,” Swiatek, a five-time Grand Slam champion, posted on Instagram a day earlier than the beginning of the Miami Open, the place she is seeded second. “Though I am not snug explaining myself, it is time I share my perspective to cease the hypothesis and baseless theories.”
Swiatek addressed what occurred final week on the match in Indian Wells, California, the place she hit a ball and it landed on the court docket near the ball boy earlier than bounding towards the stands. The episode occurred throughout her semifinal loss to eventual champion Mirra Andreeva.
“It is true — I expressed frustration in a manner I am not happy with. My intention was by no means to purpose the ball at anybody however merely to launch my frustration by bouncing it on the bottom. I instantly apologized to the ball boy, we made eye contact, and nodded to one another after I expressed remorse that it occurred close to him,” Swiatek wrote. “I’ve seen many gamers bounce balls in frustration, and albeit, I did not count on such harsh judgments. Normally, I management such impulses, so half-jokingly I can say I lack expertise on this and misjudged my purpose within the warmth of the second.”
Swiatek lamented the “fixed judgment” that accompanies her profession and wrote: “I clearly see how a lot [people] love judging, creating theories, and imposing opinions on others.”
She additionally addressed how the requirements have shifted as her outward shows of her emotions have.
“Once I’m extremely targeted and do not present many feelings on court docket, I am referred to as a robotic, my angle labeled as inhuman. Now that I am extra expressive, exhibiting emotions or struggling internally, I am abruptly labeled immature or hysterical,” Swiatek mentioned. “That is not a wholesome normal — particularly contemplating that simply six months in the past, I felt my profession was hanging by a thread, spent three weeks crying each day, and did not wish to step on the court docket.”
She spent many of the 2022, 2023 and 2024 seasons atop the WTA rankings; Aryna Sabalenka changed her at No. 1 in October. Swiatek, a 23-year-old from Poland, has gained 4 of the previous 5 titles on the French Open — together with the previous three — together with the 2022 US Open.
However she handled a doping case final yr after failing an out-of-competition drug check in August for the banned substance trimetazidine, a coronary heart treatment often known as TMZ. The Worldwide Tennis Integrity Company accepted her rationalization that the outcome was unintentional and attributable to the contamination of the non-prescription treatment melatonin that she was taking for points with jet lag and sleeping.
The decision of her case was made public in late November; she already had been sidelined provisionally, lacking three tournaments in October, and completed her one-month ban through the offseason.
“The second half of final yr was extraordinarily difficult for me, particularly as a result of constructive doping check and the way circumstances fully past my management took away my likelihood to struggle for the best sport objectives on the finish of the season,” Swiatek wrote Monday, including that it “pressured me to rearrange sure issues inside myself.”
She noticed, “I do know I am going to by no means please everybody. I stroll my very own path.” And she or he closed with the phrase: “See you in Miami.”