Soccer picks Schwiatek about being an introvert: As a child, I dreamed not of tennis, but of feeling natural in communicating with people

World number one Iga Swietek spoke about the difficulties she faced before she was 18 years old.

You can easily imagine that as a child I lay awake at night dreaming of becoming a great tennis player, but in reality this did not happen. To be honest, at night I dreamed of feeling more natural when interacting with people.

There was a time in my life when I was so withdrawn that communicating with people became a real challenge for me. Until I was 17 or 18, it was sometimes difficult to look people in the eye. I hated myself for these moments. It is very unpleasant when you cannot maintain communication. It happened that I talked to some people, but my head was empty, and I didn`t know what to say. I felt unnatural in small talk.

My story is not like the story of many other athletes, and that`s okay.

Even on the court, I wasn`t the kid who immediately fell in love with the racket. When I hear similar stories from other athletes, I think: Can a child really feel something like that? Because I wasn`t like that, not when I was six years old. Of course, I really enjoyed playing, but initially I didn`t dream of becoming a professional tennis player.

This was my father`s dream. He wanted his daughters to play sports, be active and maybe someday become athletes. I remember when I was 10 (a bit more of an extrovert back then) I wanted to stay after school and play soccer with the other kids rather than tennis. My dad came to look for me at school and kept shouting: Igaaaaa, come here! ! !

There were many moments when I didn`t want to put pressure on myself in terms of tennis, so he did it for me. He was always there, believed in me. He taught me to be a professional, to maintain discipline and consistency. This helped me both in sports and in life. He was not very tough, but he was strict about training and a healthy lifestyle, I am grateful to him for that. My dad was the voice in my head that always suggested the right path.




Schwiatek about being an introvert: As a child, I dreamed not of tennis, but of feeling natural in communicating with people Soccer picks - more details and information: Soccer picks