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Iga Swiatek confirms herself as the player of the moment by winning the US Open

BarcelonaJust in the year in which Serena Williams, the best female tennis player in 50 years, bids farewell, a young Polish woman is bidding to dominate the circuit in the coming years. At the age of 21, Iga Swiatek has won the US Open for the first time, his first major title on fast track. The Pole won against the Tunisian Ons Jabeur in two sets (6-2 and 7-6), demonstrating her character. In his short career, he has won 10 of the 11 finals he has played. It has not been easy to do. The Pole admits that she puts so much pressure on herself, that during the early years of her career she cried at the end of every match, to release the tension. Now she lives better with being such a perfectionist and stubborn. A player who looks like ice when she plays, very focused, without making mistakes. The nerves appeared when it was time to make the speech with the cup in hand. “It’s New York, it’s this stadium…everything is so big” she admitted excitedly.

World No. 1 Swiatek picked up his third Grand Slam tournament triumph after a few months where he had had a bad time, having forced himself to play well at Wimbledon, where he failed. The two previous titles he had won had been at Roland Garros, on the clay where he plays so well. So now he faced the challenge of starting to master the fast track. And she has done it, with a North American tournament where she started without being successful, but has been plugging along with the matches. Only Jabeur’s courageous reaction in the second set has made it possible to extend a final that after the first seemed destined to be decided by the fast track. The last time a woman won two Grand Slams in the same season was Germany’s Angelique Kerber in 2016. This 2022, Swiatek has won in Paris and New York. She is the woman of the moment and she can still improve, imposing a dominance that no one has been able to have in recent years.

The daughter of a 1988 Games gold medalist in rowing who wanted his daughters to be athletes, Swiatek started playing to emulate her older sister. They practiced swimming and basketball, but where they were best was with a racket. Swiatek began to impose his law in junior categories, before winning at Roland Garros in 2019 at just 19 years old. The Warsaw-born player, however, suffered some crises due to the pressure she imposed on herself. In fact, he decided that his psychologist would become part of his team and travel around the world with him. And he has made donations and collaborates in organizations that work for the mental health of young people. She has understood that you can be competitive without giving up being happy.

This season, when the clay calendar arrived, she went on a string of 36 consecutive matches without losing, surpassing the second best streak of this century, which had been chained by the American Serena Williams in 2013. With a very physical game and a great ability to send balls into the corners, as if she were a sniper, Swiatek seems shy, always hidden under a cap, when she walks the court. She lets her game speak for her, always trying to carry the weight of the match. On the other hand, Ons Jabeur, his rival, is all about expressiveness. Jabeur is the first African woman to reach a Grand Slam final. Two, actually. The two losses this year, first at Wimbledon and now in New York, where he has stood out with his brave game and a giant heart that has led him to save a match point. The Tunisian has continued to break barriers, as no Arab woman had ever made it this far in tennis. And he has always lived in Tunisia, where his mother first gave him a racket in a hotel on the coast. “It hurts now, but Iga deserved to win. I hope that I can be a reference and that more and more Tunisians can compete here” said a woman who seemed to have lost the game when the Pole went 4-2 in favor in the second set. Jabeur, however, has reacted by arriving at tie break after saving a match ball against. He did it with the Catalan Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario cheering her on in the stands. Jabeur explained that he had always wanted to be like Gabriela Sabatini and like Sánchez-Vicario, with whom he shares a style. And the Spanish player has returned her affection by encouraging her when she was suffering the most. But Swiatek, hidden under his cap, proved too superior to take the match to tie break. Excited, run over talking, she became aware of what she had done. He had the city at his feet. And the circuit, in general.

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