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Iga Swiatek says it is "obvious" that 19-year-old Cori Gauff is developing and progressing in her tennis and overall game. Swiatek, ranked at No 1 in the world, suffered her first loss against Gauff last week in Cincinnati.
After losing the first seven matches against Swiatek in straight sets, Gauff beat the Pole 7-6 (2) 3-6 6-4 in the Cincinnati semifinal. Following her win over Swiatek, Gauff also handled the business against Karolina Muchova in the Cincinnati final to lift her first WTA 1000 title.
Gauff is in great form and defending US Open champion Swiatek acknowledges the 19-year-old American has now proven that she can win the biggest titles.
Swiatek praises Gauff at the US Open
"Well, obviously she's developing.
She's a hard worker. For sure, yeah, you saw the progress. Also mentally she kind of has shown that she can win these tournaments. But for sure when I played against her, I just felt that obviously she always served fast, but she's serving even faster now.
Even though she's risking, she's putting these serves in. I think when she played against me, she was really kind of like loosened up and she went all in. It wasn't an easy match. Yeah, I can see she's progressing, so that's really nice for her," Swiatek said of Gauff.
Meanwhile, Swiatek is happy with her own preparation for the US Open. After winning a WTA 250 event in Warsaw, Swiatek suffered back-to-back semifinal losses in Montreal and Cincinnati. "Well, for sure I'm happy that I had time to practice a little bit more and to work on some technical stuff.
But I'm really happy with my performance in Montreal and Cincinnati. I get more, like, positive vibes, for sure than before last year's tournament. But being the defending champion is not easy, so I'm kind of taking it easy, trying to do everything step by step," Swiatek said. Swiatek will be kicking off her US Open title by playing against Rebecca Peterson.