Iga Swiatek on Australian Open, being a teenage Grand Slam champion & handling expectation

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.

In her first piece at the Australian Open, the seventh seed discusses coping with the attention of being such a young major champion and dealing with her own expectations.

Coming into last year's Australian Open, I was less confident than I am now. Even though I had won a Grand Slam, I felt I had to prove it wasn't just the two weeks at the French Open when I played well.

After Roland Garros, I felt my whole world had turned upside down. The first few months were really hard in balancing my tennis work and off-court responsibilities.

I had a lot of media attention — in Poland particularly but also abroad — and it was the first time I had signed a big partnership with a sponsor.

I remember coming to Australia — that was the first Grand Slam after I won in Paris — and being in a different time zone to Poland meant I could switch my phone off completely. It was really cool for me and gave me a lot of peaceful time.

But, leading up to the Australian Open, I was still really nervous for a week and my performance wasn't as good as at the French Open.

Right now, a year on and going into the 2022 Australian Open, I'm in my calm mood. I'm going to chill and see what's going to come.

After winning a Grand Slam you might think 'I can now be happy for the rest of my life' but it is totally the opposite to that. I wasn't aware it would be like that.

I expected a lot from myself and wanted to show people that I could play like that all of the time. It was kind of impossible.

So I needed some time to chill out a little bit. I had to just remember 'I'm 20 and still have lots of time to