By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Photo: Brad Penner/US Open/USTA
NEW YORK –Iga Swiatek the competitive engine helps increase the popularity of the WTA.
World No. 1 Swiatek reiterated her criticism of a busy WTA calendar. The tournament schedule is a crazy train and players need to plan more stops, Swiatek said today.
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2022 US Open champion Swiatek weathered the jitters by saving three points before winning the last five points of the tiebreak to defeat the lucky loser. Kamilla Rakhimova 6-4, 7-6 (6) in her US Open first round at Arthur Ashe Stadium today.
Afterward, Swiatek said the players are feeling the pinch and claimed that “it would be easy to adjust” for the WTA, but they are already committed to the tournament.
“Well, it would be easy to fix it for the people at the top, but they’ve already made so many decisions and promised so many things about the tournaments, for example the WTA, which, you know, means they to change their minds, which is complicated, because it’s business,” Swiatek said. “But I think the players are aware that this is crazy and the schedule is really difficult.
“I talked about it in Cincinnati, for example, and there are people who say, oh, I shouldn’t play so many tournaments, but the truth is, we have so many mandatory tournaments that we literally have to to, you know, show up and we don’t have time to, like, work on things or, like, believe peacefully, because from one tour we’re going straight to the next.”
The 23-year-old Swiatek has already posted a 54-7 record on the season with plenty more tennis to play. Critical comments of Swiatek’s calendar in Cincinnati prompted former no. 1 Yevgeny Kafelnikov to rip him off as a chronic complainer on social networks.
“Is someone pushing you to play,” he wrote. “All you do is complain!! I will tell you what you deserve! You deserve to be paid much less than you are now!! What about this??
does anyone push you to play??? All you do is complain!! I will tell you what you deserve! You deserve to be paid much less than you are now!! How about this??✌️😉 https://t.co/Oc4GBS0ll4
— Yevgeny Kafelnikov (@KYevgeni) August 17, 2024
Kafelnikov, who routinely led the ATP in combined matches played (singles and doubles), said the stars have an obligation to support the tournament.
However, Swiatek says that while it’s not healthy for the tournament to continue to push players to such a demanding schedule, he concludes that players “don’t have a lot of say in what’s going on.”
“And this is the case, for example, we don’t even have time until the end of the year, because literally the first tournament starts on December 29. So, yes, the season is, of course, also. long,” said Swiatek. I think it should be changed because I also think it will be better for the fans. Because they won’t see their favorite players go away or get hurt as much, I think.
“And we can present better quality, I would say. I mean, we could. But yeah, like I said at the beginning, I saw from last year that we don’t have a lot of influence on what’s going on, you know , up. , and basically these rules have been changed without us knowing about them, you know.”
