Iga Swiatek column: Australian Open, Melbourne sightseeing and work-life balance

Poland's Iga Swiatek, who shot to fame by winning the 2020 French Open title as a 19-year-old, is the latest WTA Tour star to feature in a BBC Sport column.

Before she plays Sweden's Rebecca Peterson in the Australian Open second round, Swiatek talks about the importance to her of developing a good work-life balance and doing that with sightseeing in Melbourne.

Even though I'm moving around the world all the time and switching time-zones, it can be easy for me to get bored.

And if I am going to get bored then I won't be as passionate on court — which is what me and my team want to avoid.

Clearly, practising and preparing properly for a Grand Slam are the priorities but we also understand — and plan — that I have the time to do something cool every few days.

Working towards a strong work-life balance, and taking care of my well-being off court, is so important to me.

I tend to get really stressed and sometimes this stress may mean I'm not enjoying the life on tour. And this life is great!

We are travelling, visiting really cool places but, in Covid times when we couldn't leave the hotel, it wasn't that cool.

Now that we are able to go out more at tournaments, like we can in Melbourne this year, is it easier to enjoy it.

This year, I have tried to change my attitudes towards tournaments and enjoy things outside of them even more than before.

For example, when I lost to Ash Bartyexternal-link in the Adelaide semi-finals recently, of course I was upset and angry. But it took me less time to get over it.

That's because I'm trying to come up with that kind of stuff to take a mental break during tournaments.

Every day I went out to the Adelaide Botanical Gardens, which was a different — and warmer — way to see nature after spending the