PARIS: Iga Sviateck is returning to a happy hunting ground as he seeks a maiden Olympic crown to add to his four French Open titles at Roland Garros.
The Polish world No. 1 has dominated the Paris clay, winning four of the last five tournaments and is unbeaten there since a quarter-final loss to Greece's Maria Sakari in 2021.
The five-time Grand Slam champion, who won the US Open in 2022, will be looking to go far beyond the 2021 Tokyo Games, where she lost to Paula Badossa in the second round.
Sviatek, 23, has had plenty of time to prepare for the Paris Olympics after an early exit from Wimbledon, where she lost to Yulia Putintseva in the third round.
A painful defeat on grass at the All England Club brought a 21 game winning streak to a screeching halt.
After that, he was asked how he is preparing for the Paris Olympics.
“I definitely want to study and rest a little more,” he said. I don't know, I feel like even though I didn't do well in this tournament, I deserved it because of how the whole season looked.
“I literally have to do better because I can't go the whole season playing good tennis.”
In 2020, Sviatek introduced himself to the tennis world by winning the French Open without dropping a set.
She was the first Polish player, male or female, to win a Grand Slam singles title and has dominated the tournament ever since, with one match three years ago.
Last month she defeated Italy's Jasmine Paolini in a one-sided final to become the fourth woman in the modern era to lift the Suzanne Lenglen coupe four times, after Justine Henin, Chris Evert and Steffi Graf.
The world No. 1 also completed the Madrid-Rome-Roland Garros clay treble. The only other woman in history to do so in the same season is Serena Williams.
Swiatek has a sporting pedigree – his father Thomas represented Poland in rowing at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
His first coach, Artur Shostachko, recalled, “Usually a little kid would have trouble hitting even one or two balls, but he could keep it up for dozens of shots.
He was a fighter… I knew if it went to a super tiebreak there was nothing to worry about – Iga wouldn't crack under pressure.
Szostaczko taught Swiatek until he was 10 years old.
He was then mentored by Michal Kazenowski, who recalls that Sviatek always wanted to be treated as an equal to his hard-working older sister Agatha.
He said: “Iga got really angry with me because I suggested an initial practice where I would play eight balls to Agatha but only six balls to Iga because he was younger.”
“This made him angry. He went to his father and said he wanted as much as Agatha.
Sviatek hopes his determination will lead him to a gold medal on his favorite turf in Paris.
