By Toby Davis
LONDON (Reuters) – Iga Swiatek knows she needs to go back to the drawing board and rethink her Wimbledon preparations if she wants to end her woeful record at the grasscourt Grand Slam after she crashed out in the third round to Yulia Putintseva on Saturday.
World number one Swiatek had looked to be cruising as she took the first set against the 35th-ranked Kazakh but her game disintegrated as she crumbled to a 3-6 6-1 6-2 defeat.
Swiatek, who was on a 21-match winning streak and fresh from winning a fifth Grand Slam title at the French Open, has never enjoyed success on grass and has not progressed beyond the quarter-finals at Wimbledon.
“I know what I need to change, and I’ll do that,” she told reporters at the All England Club as she analysed another painful loss.
“My tank of really pushing myself to the limits became suddenly empty. I was kind of surprised. But I know what I did wrong after Roland Garros. I didn’t really rest properly. I’m not going to make this mistake again.”
Swiatek had enjoyed a stellar claycourt season, triumphing at the Madrid and Rome Opens before clinching a fourth title at Roland Garros.
“After such a tough clay court season, I really must have my recovery. Maybe that’s also the reason. But I thought that I’m going to be able to play at the same level. I feel like on grass I need little bit more of that energy to keep being patient and accept some mistakes.
“Like mentally, I didn’t really do that well on this tournament. I need to recover better after the claycourt season, both physically and mentally.”
Swiatek chose not to play any Wimbledon warmup tournaments this year but said she had worked on “off-court stuff” after the French Open.
She added that she found the switch from clay to grass difficult.
“For me going from this kind of tennis where I felt like I’m playing the best tennis in my life to another surface where I kind of struggle a little bit more, it’s not easy,” she said.
“All that stuff really combines to me not really having a good time in Wimbledon. Again, I feel like if I’m going to do a better job at recovering and if I will have more energy coming into the tournament, I can work through that and just focus on the right stuff.”
(Reporting by Toby Davis; Editing by Alison Williams)
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