Evans sends Great Britain to United Cup last eight, Hurkacz and Swiatek shine for Poland

Iga Swiatek has warned rivals ‘I’m getting stronger and stronger in my head’ as she targets another memorable season in 2023.

The world number one has had a dominant 2022, claiming eight titles, including the French Open and the US Open, while embarking on a 37-match winning streak – the longest of this century on the WTA Tour – and recording 22 sets of “bagels”.

Swiatek made a winning start to her 2023 United Cup campaign with Poland earlier in the week, beating Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva 6-1 6-3 in Brisbane.

While acknowledging that she must not become complacent this year and rely on past glories, the 21-year-old feels better prepared for the season with the Australian Open just a fortnight away.

“I feel more solid, and I feel more stability too because last year Adelaide was my first tournament with a new coach. [Tomasz Wiktorowski]so that was my main focus,” she said.

“This year I have totally different challenges, so it’s really hard to compare. But I feel like I have more time to work on technical stuff at home, and hopefully I can do it. to use in matches.

“I just think it’s going to be pretty easy on my head to compare everything to last year. And I feel like it’s not really going to be helpful.

“Last year it wasn’t perfect, but sometimes when you win tournaments all your mind remembers is those good times and everything went so well.

“It wasn’t like that, but I don’t really want to go to these tournaments and be held back by my previous results. I want to treat it like new chapters, so I’ll try to do that.

“But that’s the biggest challenge I would say, and we’ll see how I go about it. Usually when I had goals like that I had ups and downs, but I have the feeling like I’m getting stronger and stronger in my mind, so maybe I’ll be able to control that.”