I shouldn’t have done that: Iga Swiatek vows ‘not to make this mistake again’ after shock Wimbledon exit

Iga Swiatek has admitted that her tank was empty during her Wimbledon defeat to Yulia Putintseva as she highlighted the “mistake” she made after a long clay-court season.

The world No 1 looked to be on course for a place in the fourth round at the grass-court Grand Slam as she won the opening set, but she then completely lost her rhythm and Putintseva came away with the 6-3, 1-6, 2-6 victory.

The defeat ended Swiatek’s 21-match win streak as she arrived at Wimbledon on the back of a dominant clay-court campaign as she won trophies at the Madrid Open, Italian Open and French Open.

Although Swiatek didn’t play any warm-up tournaments on grass before the tournament, she felt physically and mentally drained following a long clay swing.

“I wouldn’t say it was too many [matches] because obviously we need to be ready to compete at the highest level for many, many weeks,” the Pole said.
“For sure I didn’t feel like… I don’t know. My tank of really pushing myself to the limits became suddenly, like, empty. I was kind of surprised. But I know what I did wrong after Roland Garros. I didn’t really rest properly. I’m not going to make this mistake again.

“After such a tough clay-court season, I really must have my recovery. Maybe that’s also the reason. But I thought that I’m going to be able to kind of, I don’t know, play at the same level. I feel like on grass I need little bit more of that energy to keep being patient and accept some mistakes.

Like mentally, I didn’t really do that well on this tournament. I need to recover better after clay-court season, both physically and mentally.”
Asked what she could have done differently, Swiatek admitted she needed to take a break from all things tennis.

“I literally came back to work – not tennis-wise, but off-court stuff – and I shouldn’t have done that. Maybe next year I’m going to take a vacation and literally just do nothing,” she said.

The five-time Grand Slam winner added added: “Off-court stuff, my stuff. We planned the year that way so I don’t have to do a lot before the Olympics.”
The Paris Games gets underway on July 27 and Swiatek plans to finally take a well-deserved breather before getting her preparations underway for Roland Garros.

“For sure I’m going to take a lesson and rest a bit more,” she said. “I don’t know, I feel like even though I didn’t perform well at this tournament, because of how the whole season is looking, I deserve it. I should literally do it better ’cause I’m not going to be able to go through the whole season playing good tennis.