Swiatek, about her doping: "I felt that nobody was going to believe me and that I was finished"

Andrés Tomás Rico | 29 Jul 2025 | 20.39

Swiatek, about her doping: "I felt like nobody was going to believe me and that I was finished". Photo: Getty Images

Streaming Challenger Abidjan MD live tennis

🎾 Hands/Stewart vs Bittoun Kouzmine/Strombachs

Sign up with Bet365 here
Make your first deposit of at least €5
Go to the “Live” section and watch every match

Watch the match on Bet365

Iga Swiatek smiled again on a tennis court. And she did it, nothing more and nothing less, than at the most sacred place of this sport: the Centre Court at Wimbledon. The Polish player arrived in London without any expectations and without the favorite label for a long time due to her defeat in the Roland Garros semifinals and losing the number one ranking. Without making much noise, and against all odds, she lifted her sixth Grand Slam trophy on the lawns of London.

After this success and before debuting on the North American hard court tour, specifically at the Montreal WTA, she stopped by the renowned Andy Roddick's podcast, 'Served with Andy Roddick'. In this conversation, she talked about the changes she made to succeed on grass, the impact of her Roland Garros elimination, and especially about her doping case that will mark one year in October. On this topic, Swiatek opens up and confesses how she experienced the moment when she was notified of the positive test for trimetazidine and the tough weeks that followed, as well as her challenging return to the courts.

Changes in her tennis to win at Wimbledon

"I started serving much better, my coach pushed me to serve more into the 'T', which was something I didn't like doing before because I thought it was too risky for me. I needed someone to give me confidence to do it and show me that I could serve in any direction. I started doing it in Australia, and it went quite well, although not in other tournaments, but it's part of the process. The balls at Wimbledon also helped me because they stuck more to the strings and the sweet spot was larger due to the heavier balls. Honestly, I had never served so fast, and it surprised me. I don't know if I will be able to repeat it in other tournaments."

"Also, for the first time, I didn't try to replicate my clay-court style on grass, lifting the ball so much with my forehand, and not moving the same way. I had to start using more intuition and playing flatter and more aggressively, because my spin wasn't doing any damage."

She doesn't think about having surpassed tennis legends in Grand Slams

"I don't think about having surpassed great players like Lindsay Davenport or Kim Clijsters in Grand Slams because I don't yet view my career from that perspective. I try to quickly forget the tournaments I've won; in fact, I think I should celebrate them a bit more. But as many people have placed high expectations on me, winning some tournaments has been more of a relief than joy, which is why I celebrated this Wimbledon title so much, as it was very unexpected".

About her liberation after falling at Roland Garros and the moment she changed her mindset

"I felt more liberated when I lost the number one spot in 2023 for a few weeks. Initially, I was devastated, but then it was very liberating and motivated me to tell myself that I was no longer the prey, but the hunter. However, when I lost in this year's Roland Garros semifinals, it was different because I had to focus on the things I needed to correct and improve. The mindset shift came after Rome; I was totally unfocused there, had many negative thoughts, and knew that if I didn't change my attitude at that moment, I would never change. Losing at Roland Garros wasn't a big deal because I knew I wasn't playing well. I could say that my success at Wimbledon didn't come at Wimbledon, but it started in Rome".

The moment she learned about her doping positive

"It was terrible. I was at a promotional event in Warsaw and when I checked my email, I saw a message from the ITIA. I thought it was a reminder email. But I couldn't even start reading it because I started crying, and my agent thought someone had died. I handed him my phone, and when he read it, he also didn't know how to react because no one knows how to act after that. That same day, my whole team met with my lawyer. I was very affected and cried for about two weeks. I didn't feel like training because I felt it was all the fault of tennis. I felt I had lost my integrity and that no one would believe me and that it was over, that everything I had achieved would disappear".

"My team helped me all the time, and we started testing all the supplements and medications that I normally take. But in the meantime, I tried to distract myself and met with my friends, who knew nothing about what was happening, but in the end, I confessed what was going on. I also talked a lot with my psychologist, who helped me tremendously to find some logic in all of this."

About the letter she posted in March on her social media explaining her situation

"I wanted to explain because I returned to the court, and the fans had forgotten what had happened, thinking that everything had returned to normal, which I also thought at times because I thought of the typical Instagram message 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' and all that nonsense. Sometimes it works because I also hoped to come back that way, but it didn't happen, and I felt that the world was attacking me and destroying my life. My return to the courts was very different from what I expected, so I felt I had to explain it, and writing it down was easier for me than holding a press conference, and everyone understood. But all of this faded away when the clay-court season began. Also, now I'm very happy with my Wimbledon trophy, so I care very little about what others think".

This news is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, Swiatek, sobre su dopaje: "Sentí que nadie me iba a creer y que estaba acabada"