Swiatek on Wimbledon hopes: “I still feel like I need to figure out grass”

World No 1 Iga Swiatek says she “still needs to figure out grass” as she tries to win Wimbledon for the first time.

The French Open champion carries a 35-match winning streak into the Championships but admits there is still plenty for her to learn in an event she has played only twice and where she has yet to get past the last 16.

“I still feel like I need to figure out grass,” she told reporters at Wimbledon on Saturday. “Last year for sure, it was that kind of tournament where I didn’t know what to expect. Then match by match I realised maybe I can do more and more.

“Still this year I only played, like, 10 days on grass, so it’s not a lot. I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare. But I’m just trying to stay open-minded and kind of take positives from the situation and realise that I can play without any expectations.”

Swiatek is the bookmakers’ favourite to win the title, even though she did not play any warm-up events as she rested after her second Roland-Garros triumph in three years. The Pole said her winning streak means she actually feels less pressure rather than more.

“I have so much, I don’t know, successes this season that I don’t have to kind of show everybody that I need to play well on every tournament because it’s tennis, we have ups and downs,” she said. “So I try to play without expectations and just see what this tournament brings me.”

The one success Swiatek did have was winning the junior title at Wimbledon in 2018, when she used the disappointment of not winning at Roland-Garros to claim victory.

Swiatek said the one thing she can take from that experience is the way the conditions changed during the fortnight.

“For sure I want to use the experience that I had on grass, but I don’t know if it’s giving me a lot in terms of all the atmosphere that is here,” she said. “Right now we’re even in different locker rooms and, yeah, I stayed at Aorangi during that tournament. I still feel like I need to experience more.”

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