Tennis icon Billie Jean King congratulates Iga Swiatek after being named 'European Sportsperson of the Year'
Tennis icon Billie Jean King congratulated Iga Swiatek after she was named the European Sportsperson of the Year by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
The World No. 1 defeated the likes of F1 World Champion Max Verstappen and vertical jump world record holder Armand Duplantis to take home the honor.
King took to her social media platforms to congratulate the Polish player on the accomplishment.
"Congratulations to @iga_swiatek, who was named the European Sportsperson of the year for 2022," wrote Billie Jean King.
Congratulations to @iga_swiatek, who was named the European Sportsperson of the year for 2022. twitter.com/SK__Tennis/sta…
Swiatek is the fourth Pole to win the award after Robert Lewandowski, Zdzisław Krzyszkowiak and Irena Szewińska. She is also the second tennis player in a row to be given the honor, following Novak Djokovic's win in 2021.
"My main goal is to continue what I’ve been doing last year" - Iga Swiatek
In a recent interview, Iga Swiatek mentioned that she would like to build on her 2022 form heading into the 2023 season.
The 21-year-old revealed that she was aware that anything can happen in tennis and just wanted to stay consistent with her performance. She said:
"My main goal is to continue what I’ve been doing last year and not really come back to all these matches that I played, because that may really kind of make me lazy. But still, focus on just the next one and remember that in tennis anything can happen in any tournament. I just want to keep being consistent. But the specific goals I think they’re going to come when I’m going to be closer to the tournament."
She added:
"It’s kind of weird because I’ve never been in such a situation where I had such a great season. So for sure, I need to approach next year a little bit differently."
Iga Swiatek also welcomed the possibility of having a rivalry on the tour and revealed that she wants someone to push her further like how Ashleigh Barty did during her 2021 season. She said:
"I think we all need somebody who is going to push ourselves to the limit. For sure rivalry is welcome, I can totally take a lot from that. So I think it’s great that we have so many people we can compete against. It gave me a lot of motivation last season when I played against Ash (Barty) in Adelaide. For the next couple of months, before she retired, my main goal was to learn how to play against her a little bit and maybe be able to beat her."