Miami (AFP)
Ega Shviontik has matured enough. After the discreet youngster with a passion for hard rock music followed Rafael Nadal with astonishment, the sad Roland Garros 2020 tournament due to the Corona virus turned into a springboard that brought her to the top of the world tennis rankings.
On the impact of the song “Welcome to the Jungle” by the band Jans ‘n Roses through headphones, the Polish began her participation in the stadiums of the major tournaments during Roland Garros 2020 in Paris, and eventually turned into “Pink Floyd”. No one was there to applaud her. Even when she lifted the cup without losing a set in seven matches, she became the youngest Susan Lenglen Cup winner since American Monica Seles in 1992 and the first Polish woman to win a major championship.
On Saturday, under the Florida sun, the fans were present, contrary to the Parisian scene, to follow the twenty-year-old’s victory in the Miami 1000 with a landslide victory over Japan’s Naomi Osaka 6-4 6-0, 48 hours before she officially topped the WTA women’s tennis rankings. Instead of the Australian Ashleigh Barty, who is shockingly retired for 25 years.
She became the fourth player in history to win the Indian Wells-Miami double in the same year, known as the “Sunshine Double”, as the two tournaments are held in California and Miami, respectively, following German Steffi Graf (1994 and 1996), Belgian Kim Clijsters (2005) and Belarusian Victoria Azarenka (2016). ).
On Australian soil, Švientek played her first major tournament in 2019, when she reached the second round. A few months later, she did not last more than 45 minutes once morest Romanian Simona Halep in her debut at Roland Garros.
She polished her talent well in 2020, reaching the final price in Melbourne, a third round at Flushing Meadows and a great title at Roland Garros following overcoming players such as Osaka, Halep, Wozniacki, Vekic to climb to the top 20.
Another notable change made by the hardworking student in 2019 who graduated in 2020, was the replacement of her coach.
Her former coach, Pyotr Sertsputovsky, explained: Tennis was not the main focus of her life. this is difficult. Imagine: I have to organize her exercises at seven in the morning, because following that she had to go to school. She was arriving tired following having to study in the evening.
But this case is nothing but the past, even though the hardworking Polish woman is currently hiring a psychiatrist to help her prepare for the matches. “It made me smarter,” she explained in 2020. Thanks to her, my self-confidence increased.”
She adds: Mental strength is especially important. Among the elite players, everyone can play well, but the best are the mentally strong. Words that perhaps reflect the psychological pressure that is taking place with players such as Osaka, Svitolina or Azarenka who suffer from enormous psychological pressure.
Coach Sertsputovsky adds that Šviontik is a “competition monster”: when she enters the field, she is ready for everything. She is hungry for victories, knowing that she ended her dealings with him at the end of 2021.
Šviontik, who was born in the capital, Warsaw, came to the world of tennis when she wanted to beat her older sister. She inherited the competitive spirit from her father, Thomas, a former rowing athlete who competed with the Polish team in the quadruple boat competition at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
She won her first official tournament title in 2016 in Stockholm following qualifying from the qualifiers. Two years later, following several months away from tennis due to a severe ankle injury, she lifted the Women’s Singles Cup at Wimbledon.
After six WTA titles, including three in a row this year in Doha, Indian Wells and Miami, Švientek has become the world’s number one.
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