Iga Swiatek has recommended a set of changes be made to the WTA calendar amid a growing concern among players that the current calendar is too congested.
The world number one continued to handle her business on the court as she took care of lucky loser Kamilla Rakhimova 6-4 7-6(6).
It wasn’t as easy as it looked though as Swiatek was forced to save three set points and reeled off five points in a row to claim victory.
After the match Swiatek admitted that she was relieved to be in the second round after a tricky contest to begin her US Open campaign, “Well, I’m happy that I’m through to the second round, because, you know, first rounds are never easy,” Swiatek said in her post-match press conference.
“But for sure I want to improve some things and adjust a little bit so I’ll make less mistakes. But I’m happy that I’m in the second round.”
The win was Swiatek’s 56th of the season and it was her 63rd match of the season.
Although that stat looks impressive on paper, it points to a broader issue in regards to player fatigue and the calendar.
Over the last few weeks a number of players have spoken out on the tiring calendar that tennis is producing with player welfare not being taken into consideration.
All mandatory 1000 events will be 10 days long from next season with the same amount of lower events still being played.
Speaking on the issue Swiatek spoke about the fact that the new season starts on the 29th of December and the Pole believes the calendar will lead to the quality of tennis getting worse, “I spoke about it in Cincinnati, for example, and there are people saying that, oh, I don’t have to play so many tournaments, but truth, like the fact is that we have so many mandatory tournaments that we literally need to, you know, show up and we don’t have time to, like, work on stuff or, like believe peacefully, because from one tournament we’re going straight to another,” Swiatek explained.
“And this is the case for, like, we don’t even have, you know, time until the end of the year, because literally the first tournament starts on 29th of December. So yeah, the season is, for sure, too long. I think it needs to be changed, because also, I think it’s going to be better for fans. Because they’re not going to see their favorite players, like, pull out or getting injured so much, I think.
“And we can present better quality, I would say. I mean, we could. But yeah, as I said at the beginning, I saw from last year that we don’t have much influence on what’s going on you know, upstairs, and basically these rules have been changed without us even knowing about them, you know.
“These decisions about mandatory tournaments were shown to us, like, after. So we spoke to WTA about it that we want to at least be in the loop, you know. But it would be nice for us to have some impact, because I don’t think our sport is going in the right direction because of that.”
It’s been a reoccurring problem on both tours with no clear solution put in place.
When asked what changes Swiatek would make if put in charge the Pole made the following recommendations, “Well, would you say that, for example, the system that WTA had, like, I don’t know, 10 years ago, was bad? Because they had, like, 11 mandatory tournaments or 12. I’m not sure, honestly. Now everybody is going to check. I’ll be wrong probably,” Swiatek said.
“But would you say it was less interesting or — yeah, so basically it’s all about, you know, the promises that they give to tournaments that we have to play the six 500 tournaments, which basically is not necessary sometimes because we can perform well in 1000, and have a great ranking, but they promise that so we have to adjust.
“But basically it means that we have no time off. I mean, I wouldn’t say I haven’t thought of it, like, how I would schedule everything, because obviously there’s no sense to do that now when everything is changing the wrong way kind of.
“But I would say tennis was as interesting ten years ago with the other system that we had, it was fine. And players, if they wanted to play 500 tournaments to get their ranking better, they did that, but they weren’t forced to. I have nothing against 500 tournaments, but, you know, sometimes it’s hard to squeeze it in.”
Swiatek will play her 64th match of the season on Thursday against qualifier Ena Shibahara.
