Iga Swiatek had no interest in sugarcoating anything following her error-strewn display and surprise Beijing round-of-16 loss to Emma Navarro, confirming that she didn't deal with any injury but that she simply played extremely badly.
On Wednesday, Swiatek got bageled in a third set for only the second time in her career after No. 16 seed Navarro sealed a 6-4 4-6 6-0 win. After blowing an early first-set break and dropping the opener, the Polish tennis star bounced back by taking the second set. But then, she inexplicably shut down for the rest of the match.
In a match that lasted two and a half hours, Swiatek was constantly making errors. In the end, she finished with a stunning total of 70 unforced errors.
Swiatek: I'm not injured... I just didn't feel like anything was working in my game
"I'm not injured. I just played bad today. I managed to, like, work on it in the second set. Then in third, probably the mistakes I did from the beginning of the match kind of came back. Yeah, like, I didn't really, I don't know, fix the shots that I played wrong or something. I kind of knew what I'm doing wrong. I don't know, I was stuck in doing it wrong rather than actually solving it," the top seed admitted.
Swiatek then gave a brutal verdict on her performance.
"Honestly, I didn't feel like anything was working. That's why I got more and more, like, nervous," the six-time Grand Slam champion added.
Swiatek is now 6-1 at this year's Asian swing. Before losing in the Beijing round-of-16, the former world No. 1 won the WTA 500 tournament in Seoul.
Now, Swiatek's focus turns to the WTA 1000 tournament in Wuhan, where she is set to make her debut. The 24-year-old Pole didn't play in Wuhan last year because she served a silent doping ban.
