Iga Swiatek admitted she was feeling the pressure during a 6-2, 6-2 upset loss to Elena Rybakina in a fourth-round battle of Grand Slam champions at the Australian Open on Sunday.
The top-seeded WTA No. 1 with three titles at the majors in her resume, was unable to motivate herself against Kazakhstan’s reigning Wimbledon winner in a 90-minute shocker.
With the third-round defeat of second seed Ons Jabeur, this edition becomes the first Grand Slam in the open era where the top two seeds in both the men’s and women’s singles draws have lost prior to the quarter-finals.
Men’s top seed Rafael Nadal and No. 2 Casper Ruud both exited in the second round.
Swiatak said she had only herself to blame in defeat.
“The fact that I had 40-15 in the first two games, and I couldn’t close it was a little bit disturbing,” the Pole who claimed eight titles in 2022, said.
“But then I came back; I was pretty happy with how disciplined I am.”
Her efforts, however, were not enough to produce the victory as the overlooked Rybakina came through to dominate.
“For sure I need to work on my, I don’t know, kind of mindset and fight a little bit more as I did last season.
“For sure I’m going to take time right now to kind of reset.”
She added after losing her second match of the season against eight victories: “The past two weeks have been pretty hard for me.
“Today I didn;’t hae that much ro fight with, I took a step back in terms of how I approach these tournaments, and I maybe wanted it a little bit too hard.
“Elena was the one that was more solid today. I felt like it was more about who is going to put more pressure on the opponent, and she did that pretty well.
“On my serve I felt I needed to work really, really hard to get any point because my first serve wasn’t working.”
Rybakina, who pumped out six aces and broke four times, was pleased with her afternoon’s work on the Laver showcourt.
“When you play against No. 1, you have really nothing to lose.
“I knew I had to be aggressive from the first ball because she’s a great mover, and she defends really well.
“I was trying to just attack her from the first ball, and it really worked well.”
2017 Roland Garros champion Jelena Ostapenko had plenty of vocal complaints about the electronic line calling system being used at this edition.
But the Latvian didn’t let her irritation get in the way of a 7-5, 6-3 upset outside title favourite Coco Gauff.
“I have to keep more focus on the game and on the court,” the outspoken Baltic player said.
“Of course, if there were some calls which I asked my team,(in the player box) obviously, what they saw and I can do that sometimes.”
The winner added: “I’m just more hungry now to win another Grand Slam and just to play well and to be back in top 10 and just to play consistently”
Gauff gave full credit to her winning opponent: “Jelena played really good tennis, really aggressive. I feel like everything was working for
her today.
“I tried my best in the moment to combat that. There were a couple of things I could have improved on, but overall I think she deserved to win today.”
Third seed Jessica Pegula bucked the upset trend, laying down a 7-5, 6-2 defeat of Barbora Krejcikova.
