Iga Swiatek needed a set to find her game, with the top seed ultimately prevailing 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 over China’s Zheng Qinwen to reach the quarter-finals of the Cincinnati Masters.
The player who has stood atop the WTA rankings for 72 weeks and counting did not have a perfect performance, though she did score a comfortable win as usual.
But Swiatek took time to call out haters who regularly voice their anonymous opinions on social media.
“The amount of hate and criticism that me and my team get after even losing a set is just ridiculous,” the top seed said..
“I want to encourage people to be more thoughtful when they comment on Internet.”
Swiatek added: “Seeing everything that’s going on on the Internet after some days when I don’t play my best tennis and just have a little bit worse performance..
“I feel it would be such a better place if we didn’t judge each other so quickly.”
Swiatek changed her dress after losing the first set, saying the clothing swap made all the difference mentally.
“My coach told me a few weeks ago it might be a good idea to change clothes and reset..
“I tried it and it worked, I got a different vibe in the second set – thank you, coach.”
Swiatek added: “I’d love to play two-setters, but for sure today wasn’t easy. The conditions were tricky with the wind.
“I haven’t played didn’t play a lot of matches on (Grandstand) stadium, so I also needed to kind of get used to it visually.
“But I’m happy that I problem-solved. In the second and third sets I played much better and was much more solid.”
