Iga Swiatek said she would turn her attention to improving technical aspects of her game after Elena Rybakina ended her career grand slam bid with a 7-5 6-1 win in their Australian Open quarter-final.
The second seed highlighted ongoing work with her serve as the biggest area of improvement, with fifth seed Rybakina taking advantage in a one-sided second set to advance to the semi-finals.
Swiatek, 24, said she would be prepared to miss some WTA 1000 tournaments in order to fix the issues that she was unable to address during the off-season.
“I know what I need to improve, and it’s kind of the same stuff that I had in my mind before the tournament as well. So there’s no, like, breakthrough lesson,” said Swiatek.
“Some technical stuff that have been pretty tough for me to have a smooth process in terms of changing them. I see Carlos [Alcaraz], for example, changing his serve every year. For me, it’s one little thing takes much longer time.
“There are some stuff on the serve that I want to change, and I already changed that in the pre-season but then matches come and you don’t have that much time to think about this. You don’t want to think about these kind of details when you play.
“So then it comes back to the old patterns. So yeah, I’ll focus on that. I’ll see from there, because for sure, there are some stuff that I can change to play better, and I’ll try to do that in next weeks and months.”
Swiatek said it would be difficult to make those changes during the season without taking some time off. World No 1 Aryna Sabalenka also highlighted before the Australian Open that she would be prepared to miss some WTA 1000 tournaments.
“I don’t feel it’s possible to do that in the short period of time that we have between tournaments,” Swiatek said. “So last year I had trouble with making this kind of decision, but this year I’m trying to change my approach. So I think we’ll skip some 1000 tournaments.
“I was never in this position, so I don’t know what the result will be, but I think it’s necessary, because if you want to improve your game, unless I want to stay the same and just prepare for every tournament, then I can do that as well. I’ll play well, but if I want to improve something, it will be nice to have some time. Unfortunately, calendar doesn’t give that.”
Rybakina, 26, is though to the semi-finals in Australia for the first time since her final defeat to Aryna Sabalenka in 2023. She secured an eighth consecutive win against a top-10 opponent and will play either Amanda Anisimova or Jessica Pegula for a place in the final.
“I’m really pleased with the win,” Rybakina said. “We know each other pretty well, and I was just trying to stay aggressive. In the first set, the first serve wasn’t working for both of us, so we were trying to step in on the second serve and put pressure on each other.
“In the second set, I just started to play more free, serve better, and I’m really happy with the win.”
