'I felt pressure' - World No. 1 Swiatek crashes out in Melbourne

Iga Swiatek admitted the pressure of the world number one tag got to her after crashing out of the Australian Open in the fourth round to Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina. The Russian-turned-Kazakh has spoken of her frustration at not being scheduled on the main courts since her success at the All England Club and, on Rod Laver Arena, she produced a big-stage performance to win 6-4 6-4. Rybakina, who would be in the top 10 had Wimbledon offered ranking points, dropped only six points on her first serve during the match and recovered from 3-0 down against a frustrated Swiatek.

The result, coupled with defeats for Ons Jabeur, Rafael Nadal and Casper Ruud, means for the first time in the open era, the top two seeds in both the men's and women's draws have lost before the quarter-finals. While it is a big shock, Swiatek is not as dominant on hard courts as she is on clay and, although she has talked here of not expecting herself to win every match, it is clear the Pole finds it difficult to temper those expectations. "For sure the past two weeks have been pretty hard for me," said Swiatek, who won the French and US Opens last year.

"So I felt today that I don't have that much to take from myself to fight even more. I felt like I took a step back in terms of how I approach these tournaments, and I maybe wanted it a little bit too hard. So I'm going to try to chill out a little bit more.

"I felt the pressure, and I felt that I don't want to lose instead of I want to win. So that's, I think, a base of what I should focus on in the next couple of weeks." This was a meeting between the only two current active female grand slam champions, and Rybakina made the perfect start by breaking Swiatek's serve from 40-0. Swiatek, who had