Les WTA Finals se sont terminés lundi 6 novembre au soir à Cancun. Installations montées au dernier moment, qualité du court douteuse, gradins vides, météo désastreuse, finale décalée à lundi... cette semaine a viré au cauchemar. Iga Swiatek et Jessica Pegula ont eu le mérite de gérer tous ces éléments négatifs et de tirer leur épingle du jeu pour se donner le droit de se disputer le titre. Ce lundi, il n'y a pas eu match. Iga Swiatek était sur un nuage et s'est imposée 6-1, 6-0 pour remporter le Masters et reprendre la première place mondiale à Aryna Sabalenka. La patronne est de retour...
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00:00 Well, adrenaline for sure is high, you know, so I'm just really happy and super proud of myself.
00:05 This week has been, you know, not easy, but I feel like it's a kind of reflection of the whole
00:12 season, so I'm just happy that I could cope with everything well and I kind of used my
00:18 experience from all these years to perform well here.
00:27 Congratulations for the victory. Two questions. The first, you are the second in history to
00:32 win the WTA finals and you are once again number one in the world. How does it feel?
00:39 And the second, the people in Cancun, Mexico really love you. Many fans came from Poland,
00:44 but you are one of the favorites of the Mexican fans. How much would you like to play here again?
00:50 Yeah, the atmosphere was amazing and it was the same, you know, when I first came to Mexico,
00:56 to Guadalajara two years ago, so every time Mexican fans, they don't disappoint and for sure,
01:03 you know, Polish people came as well and there's more and more of them. I don't know how in every
01:09 country that I play, so I really appreciate the support and the energy that they give us.
01:14 But overall, yeah, winning this title, you know, I'm really happy, you know, that Aga kind of did
01:22 that before because she showed us that, you know, this is, it's possible for a Polish player to
01:28 achieve things like that, so it's great that I can kind of continue the legacy that she started.
01:36 And coming back to world number one, it's a dream come true for sure, you know. I would say I wasn't
01:42 expecting that right now, this season. I was kind of hoping that maybe next year is gonna be my year,
01:49 but it seems like, you know, just working hard and focusing on the right things at the end worked,
01:57 so I'm really happy.
01:57 Iga, congrats on all that. In Beijing, you were saying that you weren't really in a rush
02:08 to get the number one, you wanted to play well, become a better person, all that sort of stuff,
02:13 and that it would eventually come, but you played this tournament as though there was intention,
02:18 there was like, I don't know, just an intense level of focus and purpose. Can you talk through
02:24 that a little bit in terms of what, I don't know, how much did the number one ranking
02:28 play in kind of your mind this week?
02:32 I would say it played a lot in the US Open and tournaments before, but I kind of learned my
02:39 lesson and this time I didn't want to, didn't want it to have an impact on me, so yeah, it played a
02:47 little bit, you know, it's hard not to think about stuff like that, but actually when I went on court,
02:52 I knew that I have to focus on different things and actually the conditions here that were kind
02:56 of tricky also helped me to just, you know, focus on, I don't know, adjusting my footwork, my shots,
03:04 you know, and that just kept me busy, you know, from thinking about all of that, so I think today
03:10 was like a highlight of this like mental, just being like narrow with your head, only thinking
03:19 about the right stuff and for sure, you know, I kind of used all the experience that I gained,
03:27 you know, on important matches like that to be able to do that today, so I'm really proud of myself.
03:32 Yeah, congrats again, Iga.
03:38 Thank you.
03:40 How important is your team, first thing, mentally and not only physical, but mentally strong?
03:46 Well, my team, without them I wouldn't be here, honestly, I was pretty lucky to
03:51 find the right people pretty early to just get me better, you know, and I always worked on
03:59 on every aspect of the game, physical, like tennis-wise, but also mentally, and yeah, as you
04:05 said, I think, you know, it's the most important thing because this is why I can handle, you know,
04:11 situations like today or even the whole tournament and really not waste energy on thinking about
04:17 stuff that I shouldn't think about, you know, so I'm pretty, yeah, I'm really grateful for
04:24 having these great people in my team and my psychologist, Daria Abramovich, for sure,
04:31 without her help, I think a couple of times this season I wouldn't even go on court sometimes, so
04:38 yeah, these are like the things that you don't see on the camera, but
04:43 their support and her support really pushed me through some tough moments this year.
04:58 The spectre of 2022 was kind of, it was a shadow that was kind of, you had to play
05:03 an out of throughout the season, and I'm curious now that you can, it's end of it,
05:09 and you can look back, I mean, you won one more match this year than you did last year,
05:12 which is kind of crazy, and you're back at number one, so what was the challenge of playing out of
05:20 your own shadow while everyone was also kind of chasing you? Well, honestly, I don't know if I
05:25 still did that, because 2022 was so amazing that I don't know if it's going to be possible for me to
05:32 repeat a season like that, you know, so I just, I don't know, I just didn't feel at the end like
05:38 I'm in the shadow anymore, because I knew that I'm having, you know, another great season, and
05:43 honestly, I kind of accepted that I'm not going to have a season like that,
05:49 like in 2022, and I just kind of looked forward, you know, so for sure,
05:55 since Beijing, I started feeling a little bit more free, because I just kind of,
06:00 I really worked not to, worked on that, really focusing on the last year,
06:07 and just pushing forward, you know, so yeah, for sure it helps at the end of the season.
06:18 A lot of fans came tonight, Iga, but a lot of them were children.
06:22 What message could Iga Sviatic can tell them to pursue their dreams, to pursue?
06:29 Well, that's a tough question, because like, it's hard to like sum up my whole experience in
06:38 like one sentence, but for sure, the thing that I like to tell like children is to find right people
06:45 around you, because like, I don't know, some people tell us that we should do things on our
06:51 own, and we should be strong, and not really look at on anybody, just, you know, push forward, but
06:57 like truth to be told, even in individual sport, you need good people around you to support you,
07:02 and it's not bad to lean on somebody sometimes, so I would say, yeah,
07:07 you don't have to do it on your own, find good people around you.