Watch: Iga Swiatek shows off her impressive juggling skills at United Cup
Team Poland's Iga Swiatek showed off her juggling skills with the tennis ball at the ongoing United Cup in Brisbane.
Poland are competing in the United Cup Brisbane City Final against Italy after seeing off Switzerland 3-1 on Tuesday (January 3). Swiatek beat Belinda Bencic before wins by Hubert Hurkacz and Magda Linette sealed the tie for the Poles. The WTA World No. 1 will look to restore parity against Martina Trevisan after Lorenzo Musetti beat Daniel Michalski in straight sets to give Italy the lead.
Recently, a video emerged of Swiatek juggling tennis balls. Here's the same as shared by United Cup Tennis on Instagram, who captioned the post:
"Iga Swiatek: tennis player by day, juggler by night"
The 21-year-old faced a stern challenge from Bencic but saw off the Swiss in straight sets (6-3, 7-6(3)) to draw first blood for Poland.
After Marc Andrea Huesler restored parity for Switzerland, Hurkacz beat Stan Wawrinka to put the Poles ahead before Linette saw off Jil Teichmann in three sets to seal Poland's place in the final.
"I'm a perfectionist, but I'm happy with my performance today" - Iga Swiatek after beating Belinda Bencic
Iga Swiatek has kicked off her 2023 campaign from where she left off in 2022, seeing off Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan at the United Cup earlier in the week. Swiatek followed up that win by beating Bencic on Monday.
In a back-and-forth battle, the Pole squandered an early break before decisively breaking at 5-3 to serve out the opener. Once again, Swiatek led early in the second, only to be broken back while serving for the match. Nevertheless, she rediscovered her mojo in the ensuing tiebreak to improve to 2-0 on the season.
World No.1 @iga_swiatek has made a typically strong start, taking the opening set over Bencic.
Team Poland a set away from a 1-0 over Team Switzerland in this battle for a City Final place.
#UnitedCup https://t.co/eNMwHiVHYb
Pleased with her level of play against Bencic, Swiatek said:
"I'm a perfectionist, but I'm happy with my performance today because Belinda is playing really fast, taking the ball really early, so it's a totally different rhythm. On this fast surface it's really, really hard."
Speaking about her performance in the tiebreak, the World No. 1 said:
"I got my energy up for the tiebreaker. It was stressful as hell, the first tiebreak of the season, but I'm pretty happy that I made it."
Iga Swiatek will look to make it three wins out of three when she takes on Martina Trevisan later in the day as Poland seek to restore parity against Italy in the final.