Will Polish Powers Hurkacz & Swiatek Lead Poland To United Cup Glory?
Leave it up to Iga Swiatek to change the trajectory.
In this case, we’re not talking about her on-court results. During Poland’s United Cup press conference Wednesday in Brisbane, Swiatek (in good fun) wanted to move on from the team camaraderie line of questioning.
To be fair, it’s safe to say her fellow Polish teammates are reveling in not only playing together at this inaugural team event, but have aspirations of succeeding.
“Yeah, pumped for the team, and we will try our best,” said Hubert Hurkacz, the ATP’s World No. 10.
Still, Swiatek was ready to change it up, which of course, led to questions on her 2022 season, where she finished as the top-ranked player by a landslide. Swiatek, who finished with more than twice as many rankings points as No. 2 Ons Jabeur, was quick to admit her season went far better than she could have imagined — but was also ready to move on.
“I'm going to try to kind of cut off everything that happened last year and just focus on the future, because I feel like I can take a lot of experience from these tournaments last year,” she said, “but I don't want to really like hold on to that too much, because I want to go forward and kind of focus on my next goals.
“For sure all these press conferences are going to kind of remind me of everything, but my goal is to just focus on the future and try to improve as a tennis player.”
Sviate will hope that future involves a deep run at the United Cup, where Poland will try to battle past Kazakhstan and Switzerland in Group B.
With Swiatek and Hurkacz, as well as the leadership of former doubles World No. 1 Lukasz Kubot and co-captains Agnieszka Radwanska and Dawid Celt, Poland has plenty of experience on its side.
“We had experience before to play in the ATP Cup, now it's United Cup. I think it's a great thing, and we are going to continue this for the next years,” Kubot said. “I'm very pleased to be with the Polish team, especially right now it's a big boom in our country with tennis.”
Radwanska is familiar with mixed-teams events, having lifted the 2015 Hopman Cup trophy for her country with Jerzy Janowicz.
“I’m very happy to be part of the team. Myself, I had a great experience playing Hopman Cup for the two times and winning that event as well,” Radwanska said. “I think it's going to be a really interesting one, combined, ladies and gentlemen all together. I think it's going to be a lot of good tennis the next few days.”
Poland will need to be sharp against Kazakhstan and Switzerland, both of which have playing captains. Former World No. 3 Stan Wawrinka leads Switzerland, which also features WTA stars Belinda Bencic and Jil Teichmann.
“It’s always special to be in a team, especially when you represent your country,” Wawrinka said. “It's something that I want to play my best, do the best I can. Hopefully I can really help the team.”
Alexander Bublik is the playing captain for Kazakhstan. The 25-year-old is thrilled not just for the event, but to be competing in Brisbane.
“It's great to be back in Brisbane. Been here first time in [2018] when they hosted the ATP event here,” Bublik said. “It's always been great memories, one of my favourite stops in Australia. Pretty excited to play here, centre court, and have this inaugural United Cup and be part of it.”