Iga Swiatek is looking to capitalise on an improvement in confidence after winning the Doha title.
The world number one only dropped five games in Doha this week on her way to a first title of the season.
Swiatek successfully defended her title in convincing fashion after a 6-3 6-0 victory over Jessica Pegula, who she lost to earlier in the season at the United Cup.
The Pole admitted after the match that this match will be a confidence booster and she needed more balance to her year, “I’m really happy that I could kind of find more balance, comparing to how I felt at the beginning of the season,” Swiatek told the WTA website.
“I think this tournament is going to give me a lot of confidence, but still, I want to take everything step by step. I’m just really happy that I could win this match today.
“Every game I was really focused, and that’s the thing I’m most happy about, because at the beginning of the season I felt like my mind was kind of flying away sometimes.
“But here, the work we have put in with my coach on court and with Daria off the court, for sure, it just paid off, and I felt like everything is clicking.”
Swiatek will now head to Dubai next week in confident mood as she looks to have got her on-court swagger back having not dropped a set this week.
The Pole will look to gain as many wins as possible as she looks to defend her titles in Indian Wells and Miami next month.
Swiatek also told the WTA website that she tried not to overthink the match and adapted to the windy conditions, “Yesterday it kind of hit me that even though it’s windy, I can use the wind properly and kind of use my intuition to sometimes imagine that I should play shorter, or on the other hand, play with more topspin so the wind is going to kind of take this ball even further,” Swiatek said after her win.
“So today I just kind of continued that, but I didn’t really want to overanalyze that, and I just kind of played how my intuition told me. It’s nice, because usually I’m basing everything on my tactics and on the technique that I’m working on.
“But here I felt like I could just reset that and play more freely without overthinking.”
Swiatek is due to play Austrian qualifier Julia Grabher or former US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez in her first match in Dubai next week.