The five-time Grand Slam winner’s US Open campaign came to an end in the quarter-final as she went down 6-2, 6-4 against Jessica Pegula in New York.
The 23-year-old, though, fared better than last year when was the defending champion and lost in the fourth round at Flushing Meadows. She ended up losing the No 1 ranking to Aryna Sabalenka after the tournament.
Although disappointed with her exit from the hard-court Grand Slam, Swiatek believes she handled the pressure better than twelve months ago.
“Last year I felt like a lot of, I don’t know, anxiety and pressure with being world No 1 … I don’t know, feeling that I might lose it, you know?” she explained.
“And this year I didn’t feel it that much. I feel more mature in terms of not really thinking about the rankings and the points.
“So I think on this tournament, yeah, it’s hard for me to compare because there are so many other factors except the Olympics that come in that it’s hard to judge. But for sure, one less tournament on hard court, a little bit less time to play on hard court.
“Maybe that matters, but honestly, I’m not that experienced to know.”
Swiatek is assured of remaining at No 1 in the WTA Rankings after this year’s tournament, but the past few months have not been easy for the Pole as she lost in the third round of Wimbledon and won bronze at the Paris Olympics where she was the overwhelming favourite to win gold as it was played at Roland Garros.
She then kicked off her North American hard-court season with a run to the semi-final of the Cincinnati Open before losing to Pegula.
The reigning French Open champion says the key to relieving the pressure is to keep expectations low.
“I’m always trying to have lower expectations because I know that, like, any of us can win this tournament, and it’s not going to be easy,” she explained.
“Also, I feel like when I have high expectations, I never perform well, so I try to lower them. It’s not like it’s just low, and that’s it because it’s hard to have low expectations when everybody’s expecting something from you and you kind of know that you might have a game to play well.
“But for sure, I mean, I remember how it was last year, and I’m not gonna just expect from myself that I’m always going to win. I’m more just focusing on the work, and it’s more of an answer because when I talk to you guys, because everybody’s always speaking about results straight away when you go in a tournament they want to know what my goal is.
“I don’t know, winning the final, semi-final, and it’s just not it. These are not my goals when I go in a tournament. So that’s my answer because I want to explain that I don’t expect from myself the results. I’m more expecting, you know, that I’m gonna work, and I’m gonna go through some problems and work on them.”
