PORSCHE TENNIS GRAND PRIX

April 14, 2025

Iga Swiatek

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Iga, welcome back to the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, a tournament you have a lot of great memories of. How special is it to come back here each year?

IGA SWIATEK: Thank you. Yeah, obviously I love this place. I don't know. I always feel like coming to a tournament like that, from being in U.S., it's a little bit different vibe. It's close to my home, so... I'm also happy to see some Polish fans every year. For sure it's super exciting.

THE MODERATOR: Talk about how you're feeling physically, how have your practices been the last few days. Give us some insight into that.

IGA SWIATEK: Yeah, I came here a little bit earlier to get couple of days of rest, and then I practiced every day pretty long. I'm happy to get some hours on this surface because it's always pretty tricky.

Obviously with my schedule this year, I had a little bit more time to maybe do some technical adjustment, so I've been focusing on that and I feel great.

THE MODERATOR: We'll start with questions.

Q. Tell us what it's like when you put your clay court shoes on for the first time. Is it like putting on your favorite coat or your favorite dress or something?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, it's still a challenge because it's not like I come to play and everything is perfect suddenly. We play on a hard court most of the year, so coming to clay court I still need some time to adjust to.

But for sure I feel like I'm in the right place. With a good amount of work and focus, quickly I'm going to be able to start playing my game.

Yeah, but obviously, like, every year is different because for most of years I didn't have much time to do the transition. This year I was able to do it a little bit calmer and I'm happy that, yeah, I had a chance to do that. I'm happy to be here.

Q. But is it quicker for you to get used to playing on clay compared with hard courts or grass?

IGA SWIATEK: I wouldn't compare to hard courts because just the fact that we're playing on it for most of the year makes it for sure easy.

Yeah, grass, it's tricky (smiling).

Clay, yeah, transitioning to clay will always be a bit easier. I just try to use that as my advantage.

Yeah, but honestly there are many weeks as well of playing on clay, so I'm kind of keeping it cool and not judging from the first practices.

Q. As this is a tournament with a long tradition, it's probably the fourth time you're playing here, I do wonder if you still feel like some goose-bumps looking at the past winners and seeing your name is there twice?

IGA SWIATEK: Maybe not goose-bumps because probably I felt them when I won. But now it's just a great memory. For sure I'm proud of my achievements here. It's good to come back and feel these nice memories, but it doesn't change what's going to happen in the future. So got to focus on that.

Q. There was this case in Miami where you were threatened during practice. It must have been a nightmare. Do you have any ideas how to better protect players from such cases?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, I wouldn't call it a threat because it wasn't that hard. I mean, for sure there was a fan that wanted to, like, disrupt my rhythm. Yeah, well, I try to focus on the fans that are giving me support.

But obviously when you hear something like that, you want to react. I think WTA helped us, helped me, to feel protected.

Well, actually, yeah, the thing that I heard wasn't a threat, but I think there were some threats on the Internet. So yeah, WTA helped me react quickly and made me feel secure. I'm happy there is someone, like, overlooking us and helping us to react in these kind of situations. Yeah, that's what happened.

I'm happy that I have my team also around that helps me in these kind of situations.

Q. Can I ask you about prize money at the Grand Slams. The top players have written to say they think the Grand Slams should pay more prize money. Do you agree with that?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, I think, like, there's some data available on the Internet about the comparison between tennis and other sports. For sure we've been discussing with Grand Slams about many topics.

Yeah, I mean, it could be better, but I'm not going to say a lot because, first of all, we need to figure it out kind of internally. For sure there's some time needed to do that.

Yeah, I don't want to speak out right now about that.

Q. Charleston has announced it will give equal prize money to women as for a men's 500 tournament. You must be very pleased at that.

IGA SWIATEK: I've never played this tournament, but I know that there is some long-term plan that WTA has of equaling the prize money I think on most of tournaments except 250s.

Yeah, but honestly, like, week by week this is not something that I focus on. I'm not checking on every tournament, how does it look like. But for sure it's great that Charleston has announced that.

Q. At the beginning of Miami you opened up a little bit on Instagram on what was going on behind the scenes with some struggles. As you have always been someone who has never been shy about talking about the mental part of the game, I wonder if that brought you to a different kind of preparation for the clay season, prioritizing more the mental part. Was it the same from the previous seasons?

IGA SWIATEK: No, I think preparation obviously worked previous years, so it has been similar. The only difference is I had more time to play on clay this year.

For sure my goal is to, like, focus on myself. Yeah, it hasn't been easy for past months because after having such great seasons, I've been on a spotlight and my every move is kind of judged, the expectations are high.

But yeah, my goal is to focus on myself and focus on the process, on what I want to change on the court. For sure, with Wim we have many ideas of how I can improve my technique. On practice court, it has been looking pretty well, so I want to implement that on matches.

I try to keep myself busy with these things. I'm pretty sure if I am going to work hard, the results also are going to come after that.

People also, I don't know, they will say whatever they want to say. You sometimes need to ignore that.

So yeah, we'll see.