Swiatek and behind, the void

Labels are for filing, they are for clothes.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
01 June 2022 Wednesday 20:54
3 Reads
Swiatek and behind, the void

Labels are for filing, they are for clothes. Labels are not for people

Martina Navratilova

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The WTA circuit works hard, and that's why it promotes Iga Swiatek. She doesn't want another Ashleigh Barty case to happen again.

Ashleigh Barty is barely 26 years old, and yet in March she said enough is enough. With treachery and without prior notice, she announced:

"Ash Barty, the person, has a lot of dreams that have nothing to do with traveling the world or being away from my family or home, which is where I've always wanted to be," he said.

And yeah, he's gone.

So, Barty was number 1 in the world, who could imagine something like that?

(...)

There was something disconcerting in the Barty case, something that no one will be able to gut: at the time she left, the Australian had chained 115 weeks as the leader of the WTA circuit.

(In the history of the circuit, only six tennis players exceed those figures: Steffi Graf, Serena Williams, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Martina Hingis and Monica Seles)

His were figures of legend. And yet, did he paint something in the popular imagination?

Had anyone noticed his presence, his true weight on the circuit?

The WTA doesn't want something like this to happen again. So promote Iga Swiatek.

Swiatek is 21 years old and has been the world leader since Barty left, and the WTA wants the general public to know her and that is why, on the eve of Roland Garros, the circuit was offering her presence to multiple international magazines: and the Polish posed like a model, with a style carved to measure, just like the hair and makeup.

Possibly Swiatek caught the message on the fly. She has already won five titles in this 2022, and with yesterday's –6-3 and 6-2 Jessica Pegula–, she has chained 33 consecutive victories.

Right now, with Barty out of the game and Paula Badosa stuck, Swiatek is more alone than ever at the top: the Roland Garros 2020 champion, who is already in the semifinals (she has only given up a set in five games), was the only Top -10 that was still standing in the quarterfinals.

And all of this should put pressure on her, and yet she interprets it as a release:

-I feel liberated. I have realized that I can be number 1 and I can behave at that level - she told the press yesterday, somewhat neutral in his speech, somewhat expressionless.

-When you say you feel liberated, what exactly do you mean? –She asked him.

-I mean the fact that I feel as if I was in the right place, not like in my other two semifinals of a Grand Slam (Roland Garros in 2020, Australian Open in 2022), when I had appeared there as if by chance, without nobody counted on me, and I had to prove many things. This year is different, because I am not a newcomer.

Daria Kasatkina, Russian without a flag, awaits her today in the semifinal. In the other, Coco Gauff-Martina Trevisan.