Tennis champion Iga Swiatek wasn’t even born when Friends first aired on TV, but like many other fans, she was thrilled to meet Courteney Cox. Swiatek, 22, shared a picture of herself posing next to the actress, and shaking hands across the net. “The One Where @iga.swiatek Meets @courteneycoxofficial. 😱 We saw this comment a little while ago and saved it. Today, we were able to help this dream become reality and show a little love to our #1 ahead of a very busy week for Iga in Paris. Jazda, @iga.swiatek 💪 #DreamOn #DreamTogether,” reads the caption on the post. “Definitely my new FRIEND! ❤️🎾🙌” Cox commented. Here’s how the young athlete stays focused, strong, and fit.
Swiatek has become a superstar in her native Poland. “Nothing could have prepared me for it,” she writes for The Players’ Tribune. “Winning my first Slam obviously changed everything for me, overnight. There are still many places in the world where for sure I’m not going to be recognized. If a random person looks at me, they’re not going to say, Oh, she’s an athlete, she plays tennis. But not in Poland. I’ve actually had some situations where people recognized me by my voice when I was ordering something to eat.”
Swiatek struggles with being a perfectionist. “Even in everyday life, I feel like I have to do each task until the end, and very well,” she writes for The Players’ Tribune. “Like when I clean up the house, I feel myself wasting all this energy, but I can’t stop because I have to do it perfectly. In practice, I usually leave feeling like I haven’t done enough. I have to force myself sometimes to feel proud of myself. But on the other hand, I know that the quality of having to do everything right is the thing that led me to this point in life, so it can be hard to work on it.”
Swiatek is a member of the Porsche Friends team, and says her tennis style is similar to driving. “In general, I know that I have to watch my technique just as much as on the court,” she told Label Magazine. “For instance thanks to doing sports, I have the ability to react quickly on the road. I also seem to have a good feel for the car, which I discovered on the track.”
Swiatek hopes when she is 75 she will look back and be proud of her achievements. “I hope that I will then lead a life in which I will remember all my earlier years with satisfaction,” she told Label Magazine. “I will certainly benefit from not having to do anything anymore, but all in all, I know that I already don’t have to do anything in a certain way. I also hope that I will then be surrounded by people close to me and, of course, enjoy this spacious house by the water.”
Swiatek is a strong proponent for mental health awareness. “Right now, starting this new season, I feel more confident because I already feel like I did something great,” she writes for The Players’ Tribune. “I already feel like in my country I make people proud, and I changed something. I want to keep using my voice to speak up about problems in Poland, like mental health. It’s still something unusual to go to therapy, and I hope to help change that.”