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World No. 1 Iga Sviatek took confidence from her Stuttgart title but is still unseeded at the Madrid Open.
Swiatek already has five clay court titles to her name, but she hasn’t had much success in Madrid.
Last season she missed the race by negligent but was installed as the favourite.
«Of course I want to win every tournament I go to, but Madrid, for sure, is a tournament that I haven’t predicted 100 percent yet,» Swiatek told reporters.
«So I just want to get the experience. A win means I get to play six matches, so that’s a lot and I can learn a lot from that.
“But now I’m only focused on the first round, and I want to take it step by step. So we’ll see.
Swiatek struggled to survive in conditions that were not the same as elsewhere.
«I felt like it was flying fast off my racket,» Swiatek said after her first practice.
But I still have a lot of things I can change like string tension and everything. So my coach is working on that, and I think every hour gives me more.
«[At] Roland Garros and Stuttgart My main goal was to play as hard as possible because these balls are hard. Here we also have heavy balls, but I feel that they are flying more like bullets. You have to control them. And the clay is a little different. The movement and the stuff, I just have to get used to it.
«it’s good. I think I only need two days.
Swiatek believes it will take some time to play at La Caja Magica.
«I think this tournament in Stuttgart is very fast because it’s a big transition between hard court and clay,» Swiatek said. “Tactically, you also have to play fast and move your opponent, because it’s hard to come back and recover from all this slippage.
“It’s hard to do that in Rome because everything is so slow. You have to be more patient. Lines get longer. You’re going to feel like you’re not playing as fast as you can, but that’s not true.
“Here, I can’t really say much, because it’s my second time playing this tournament. I don’t have much experience here, but I think the main thing is to control the height. That’s what I focus on.
