ROLAND GARROS

May 31, 2026

Iga Swiatek

Press Conference

M. KOSTYUK/I. Swiatek

7-5, 6-1

THE MODERATOR: Iga, tough result today. Just give us some of your reflections on the match, please.

IGA SWIATEK: Yeah, for sure it wasn't a good day in the office. Many things, you know, I could manage a bit better, but it was super tough for me today to keep the level that I wanted to. Obviously at this stage, you know, any opponent, like, in the fourth round, already played couple of matches, will use the opportunity.

So congrats to Marta.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Nobody likes to lose, especially when you're a champion. You won the tournament four times and so on, but everyone reacts differently. I would like to know if now you accept the defeats in a different way from where you were accepting them maybe years ago, or something has changed? I mean, you care more, you care less, same?

IGA SWIATEK: No, I feel like I care even more maybe, but no, I always cared. You know, sometimes you have losses that it's hard to let go, because you just know it wasn't your day or you know that your opponent was better.

I guess it depends on the reason, why you lose, you know. But today I feel like, you know, it wasn't nice after the match, obviously, because I know that I can perform better, but today I couldn't.

I did everything to handle it, but it was tough, and nothing I can do now except to learn from it and try, you know, to work and try to do better next time.

Q. Tough one today. I feel like tennis players will often talk about how it's easier to stomach a loss as long as you're losing in maybe a different way than you did previously. Since you have clearly been feeling much more comfortable and better in your tennis and the decision-making process, all of that, I wonder if today felt like a familiar loss to you or if it felt like something maybe where you are saying, okay, I can identify still the places where I'm making progress even though I lost today?

IGA SWIATEK: Yeah, well, for sure I lost control of the match, and there was no way for me to, like, come back, because I felt worse and worse, you know. So this is not, like, positive, and this is different than losing to Elina in Rome or to Andreeva, I guess, in Stuttgart.

So, yeah, it's not great. I know that I lost because I was tense, and my body couldn't really do what my body... the proper things, you know, but it's not the first time, as well. So, yeah, just need to work on it.

Honestly, like, for me, maybe the toughest loss is when you had the match in your hands, but I don't know, you made stupid decisions and you let it go and your opponent suddenly comes back. It's also bad when your tennis is just terrible, and you know that you were worse than the players that you play with.

But I feel, like, for sure I lost today because Marta used the opportunity, and I was super tense. I feel like I can work on that, at least, and there is a reason, and there is maybe a solution. Maybe it's not going to take one week or one month. Maybe it's going to take even a season or something, but I need to believe that I can work through this and not be thrown off so quickly.

Q. You're heading back to grass next, and last year you had your best grass season of your career by far, starting in Bad Homburg. As you look ahead to this surface now, do you feel you still have things that you unlocked last year that you will use again once you step back on that surface?

IGA SWIATEK: I don't know. I haven't thought about grass at all. Hard to say.

Yeah, it was a great year last year, but also, my previous results were not good, you know. I mean, they were good, but depending, you know, how you look at it.

So I'm going to probably take it easy and try to be patient and be humble. Like, I don't know how it's going to be. I'm not a wizard.

Q. Tough one today. You have achieved so much in your career, you've won so many matches on that court. Can you share why you got so tense today? What's behind it? Like your forehand, for example, why it took you completely out of that game today?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, I mean, we're not on therapy session (smiling), so I'm going to keep it simple, but obviously there could be many reasons. I'd rather, like, work on it on my own.

It is harder a bit to handle stress for me in, like, last year, especially I feel like the peak was in U.S. this year. So I feel like today I felt off, you know, and I did mistakes that I didn't want to do, and I wanted to play safe, but the ball flew everywhere.

Suddenly these feelings came back, and I tried to, like, work on it with my dialogue inside, but it was tough today. Yeah, so it all kind of went drastically down, and I played worse and worse.

Q. I was curious if your serve was part of that kind of tension? I think from 4-3, you didn't hold serve for the rest of the match, so curious how you felt with that shot. Obviously given the technique change, do you have to, I guess, kind of accept that things might be complicated with that shot until you reach a point where you're comfortable?

IGA SWIATEK: I still don't put the elbow how I exactly want to, so for sure, like, technically when we have more time to practice, I want to, like, repeat, repeat, repeat a hundred times, you know, to get it better.

But, for sure, you know, I think the serve is the most complicated shot. So if something will fall apart a bit under pressure, I feel like it's serve and then movement and then just mis-hitting everything. So, yeah, I guess that happened today, and yeah.

Q. Obviously the first week, playing under roasting temperatures and the ball is going to do different things, string tension, all sorts of things, and you wouldn't have been able to practice under cooler conditions before today. So were you surprised by what the ball was doing early on, maybe even in warmups or things like that? Was there anything like that that added a variability to the performance?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, I strung the racquets lower, but I still felt the ball was flying quite long. It's hard to say, honestly. I probably feel like maybe my hand was slower, not because of the temperature, but because of how I felt today.

That's why I didn't really put them more in. But maybe I went too low with the tension. Now it's going to be hard to check. It's impossible to know. But honestly, if you feel good, if you play good, you can probably win with any racquet.

So it's hard for me to say what's for sure, you know. That's not why I lost or something.

Q. This week ahead now, obviously been very rare you have had this week not here. Will you see it as a bonus week of rest or a bonus week of getting on the grass early?

IGA SWIATEK: There is no bonus from being out of the tournament.

Q. But I just mean will the focus on this week that maybe you didn't think you'd have, will that be more about rest and recuperation or trying to get ahead and get more grass practice in?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, for sure rest and then practice, but I'm not planning now. I don't think even the team is planning yet, so we'll see also. I have some obligations that I always do after the Roland Garros, and then probably I'll go somewhere other than Poland to practice on grass, because it's hard to practice on grass in Poland.