Iga Swiatek started her campaign at the 2026 Australian Open with a hard-fought win against Yuan Yue, and she left tennis pundits surprised with her approach to the match.<\/p>\n
The six-time Grand Slam winner overcame Yuan, a 130th-ranked Chinese qualifier, 7-6(5), 6-3 in just under two hours on Rod Laver Arena.<\/p>\n
Swiatek<\/a> landed 24 winners and also committed 35 unforced errors \u2014 21 of which came during an opening set she narrowly won after she was twice a break down, with Yuan having led 5-3 and served for the set.<\/p>\n The world No 2 jumped to a 3-0 double break lead in the second set, but she still had to work hard to finish off her 27-year-old opponent.<\/p>\n The 24-year-old Pole is vying to win her maiden Australian Open<\/a> title, which would see her complete the career Grand Slam.<\/p>\n Following her victory against Yuan, Swiatek said: \u201cI started a bit tense so I needed to get my legs moving and go after my shots.<\/p>\n \u201cI just needed to react a bit quicker and not be pushed back and really go for it. It wasn\u2019t perfect, but that\u2019s why I am happy, because it\u2019s not hard to win matches when everything is going well. Today it wasn\u2019t and I managed to win so that\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking on TNT Sports, former British No 1 Anne Keothavong questioned Swiatek\u2019s highly aggressive approach early in the match.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t think it was ever going to be an upset, but I was surprised with how Swiatek started and how she approached the match and wanted to hit the cover off every ball,\u201d said the former world No 48.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel with her, it doesn\u2019t have to be so big and brash at the start of every match. We see her at the start of matches \u2014 the speed is so much faster in the first three or four games than the rest of the match. She attempts to bulldoze her opponents and outhit them.\u201d<\/p>\n Coco Gauff makes confession about \u2018feeling really bad\u2019 about head-to-head against rival<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Australian Open: How Iga Swiatek and Carlos Alcaraz would make history with Career Grand Slam \u2018double\u2019<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n Tim Henman, a former world No 4, also felt that Swiatek made life difficult for herself by committing a high number of unforced errors in the opening games.<\/p>\n \u201cWith so many players, it\u2019s trying to find the balance between control and aggression,\u201d said the six-time Grand Slam semi-finalist.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you are playing well you can take the shot on and you are feeling confident, but when you are not playing quite so well you have to find that balance and play with a bit more patience and give yourself more margin.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s almost like she wants to send a message to the whole tournament about how well she is playing from the word go, but the reality is she only has to be better than one person today and that was Yuan.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd because she made unforced errors to begin with, she makes life difficult and she did well to win that first set and win in straight sets, but giving herself a bit more margin would help her settle in a bit quicker.\u201d<\/p>\n Swiatek will face world No 44 Marie Bouzkova in the second round after the 27-year-old Czech downed 80th-ranked Renata Zarazua in the first round.<\/p>\n The former world No 1 won both of her previous matches against Bouzkova.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: How has Alex Eala\u2019s Australian Open exit affected her ranking? And what did she say after defeat?<\/a> The post Iga Swiatek\u2019s tactics questioned by ex-stars after opening round Australian Open win<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Iga Swiatek started her campaign at the 2026 Australian Open with a hard-fought win against Yuan Yue, and she left tennis pundits surprised with her approach to the match. The six-time Grand Slam winner overcame Yuan, a 130th-ranked Chinese qualifier, 7-6(5), 6-3 in just under two hours on Rod Laver Arena. Swiatek landed 24 winners […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What did Iga Swiatek say after her opening round win?<\/h2>\n
What did tennis analysts say about Iga Swiatek\u2019s performance?<\/h2>\n
Australian Open News<\/h2>\n
Who will Iga Swiatek play next?<\/h2>\n
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