Iga Swiatek was brought to tears after surviving a scare in the first match of her title defence at the 2026 Wimbledon Championships.<\/p>\n
The world No 3 was tested in a 6-1, 2-6, 6-3 victory against 79th-ranked Taylor Townsend in the opening round on Centre Court.<\/p>\n
After breaking serve three consecutive times to win the first set comfortably, Swiatek quickly found herself facing a 0-4 deficit in the second set before Townsend levelled the match.<\/p>\n
Swiatek<\/a> then saved four break points to hold serve in a 23-point opening game of the third set, which lasted 21 minutes.<\/p>\n The six-time major champion broke to take a 4-2 lead in the decider, but her 30-year-old American opponent broke straight back in the following game.<\/p>\n The 25-year-old then delivered the decisive blow by breaking to take a 5-3 lead before serving out to love.<\/p>\n Following her celebration, Swiatek cried and hid her face in her towel as she sat in her chair.<\/p>\n Iga Swiatek\u2019s behaviour labelled \u2018weird\u2019 during Wimbledon win against Taylor Townsend<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u2018Serena Williams has nothing to prove at Wimbledon \u2013 but she only came back to win\u2019, says her ex-coach<\/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 Swiatek\u2019s emotions were still close to the surface when she spoke in her on-court interview.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019m able to talk that much (smiles), No, just, it was a tough couple of weeks,\u201d said Swiatek.<\/p>\n \u201cNot a season where everything went how I wanted. I don\u2019t think I won any three-set matches this year, so I\u2019m happy that I could do it here.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously it means a lot opening the court as the defending champion. So yeah, just happy to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n Swiatek also discussed the importance of holding serve in the marathon first game of the third set.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, well, sometimes just serving the ball in might be a tough ask, so this game for sure was about that, and it was about believing that I can do it, \u2019cause it was long and many break points,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo at the end, I\u2019m happy I kept my composure. I was listening to the box and they were supporting me a lot. I knew I needed to be solid and not look for winners or serves that would give me a point. Play more safe, to have a chance to play a rally.<\/p>\n \u201cSo yeah, I\u2019m happy at the end that this game went well, because I think it was crucial. Yeah, into the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking on BBC 5 Live, Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli shared her thoughts on Swiatek\u2019s emotional reaction.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can see the relief on Iga\u2019s face. It was a very intense match,\u201d said the former world No 7.<\/p>\n \u201cThe moment it turned was in the very first game of the third set. It was absolutely pivotal because she was really losing the momentum of this match.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Serena Williams Wimbledon decision branded a \u2018disgrace\u2019 by Grand Slam-winning coach<\/a> The post Iga Swiatek makes emotional statement after Wimbledon win brings her to tears<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Iga Swiatek was brought to tears after surviving a scare in the first match of her title defence at the 2026 Wimbledon Championships. The world No 3 was tested in a 6-1, 2-6, 6-3 victory against 79th-ranked Taylor Townsend in the opening round on Centre Court. After breaking serve three consecutive times to win the […]<\/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-2415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2415","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=2415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Wimbledon News<\/h2>\n
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