Iga Swiatek has been pretty vocal about the congested tennis schedule, but the five-time Grand Slam winner says she has no plans to skip any big events in the next few months.
Last year Swiatek played in the two Middle East WTA 1000 events, the Sunshine Double in Indian Wells and Miami, the Billie Jean King Cup qualifiers for Poland and a full clay-court swing featuring the Stuttgart Open, Madrid Open, Italian Open and Roland Garros.
That busy schedule eventually took its toll as she admitted later in the campaign that she ran out of steam and stated that tennis authorities were “pushing and pushing for us to play more” and pleaded that “we deserve to rest a little bit more”.
The then world No 1 later added: “I think it needs to be changed because also I think it’s going to be better for fans and because they’re not going to see their favourite players like pull out or getting injured so much, I think, and we can present better quality, I would say.”
Swiatek, though, plans to play the same events in 2025 as she intends to participate in all the major clay-court tournaments after the conclusion of the Sunshine Double.
“I don’t remember how it was last year. I know that every, like, swing is different. For example, I don’t know, like, one year or two years ago in Middle East, I also got, like, two walkovers. This year I didn’t,” she explained.
“The tournaments can be, there’s no way to compare one year to the other, because that story can be totally different. For sure this part of the season is really tough. And I, for sure, don’t want to miss any clay court tournaments. And Indian Wells, Miami, as well, I love these tournaments, and I already proved myself that physically I can handle it.
“You know, also, it’s going to be different if you’re going to start these tournaments, I don’t know, three-setters or two matches, 6-2, 6-2, you know. So, yeah, I mean, we’ll see. There is no point to overthink that. My plan is to play everything.
“I’ll just go with it step by step, week by week, and we’ll think about it during. I mean, it’s more coach’s job to plan it before in a way that I can start the swing with enough amount of freshness and recovering.”
There appear to be no plans to reduce the number of tournaments, instead some WTA 1000 events have been expanded as this year’s Canadian Open and Cincinnati Open will now be two-weeks long.
The Pole is coming off a slightly disappointing Middle East campaign as she reached the semi-final in Qatar while she lost in the quarter-final in Dubai.
Up next is her Indian Wells title defence.
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Asked about the long time on the road, the reigning French Open champion said: I think I already got used to it, also because the slams were always long, so you always get a one day off.
“Honestly, well, for sure, it’s hard at the end of the year, because you feel like you’ve been on tour for a long time,” she said. “The tournaments are long. So if you’re gonna play till the end, you don’t have much time to go back home or to even have two proper days off, you know.
“But on the other hand, there are also advantages. You can use this day off for a nice practice, and if you feel like your technique when you’re playing matches is going down a bit, you can really remind yourself on these practices on what to focus on and what to work on.
“I try to look at the positive side of this, as we don’t have much influence on the scheduling. I’ll take as much from it as possible.”