Iga Swiatek: "I remember signing my first sponsorship deal and how much pressure it put on my shoulders, not everybody understood"

World No. 1 Iga Swiatek recently spoke on sponsorship deals and how the topic used to evoke anxiety for her when she was much younger.

Iga Swiatek has been in fine form at this week's Cincinnati Open, having started her campaign with a 6-1, 6-0 win over Danielle Collins. She then overcame a rough start against Qinwen Zheng in her next match to win 3-6, 6-1, 6-1, and advance to the quarterfinals at the WTA 1000 event. She will face the 2022 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova for a place in the last four.

While the 22-year-old has lately been the cynosure of all eyes, thanks to her tennis, she has also been making waves off the court. Earlier on Thursday (17 August), she became the first-ever tennis player to sign as a global ambassador for Visa.

Against that background, Iga Swaitek was asked in her post-match press conference whether the aspect of endorsement contracts off the court ever affects her tennis, if at all.

In her response, Swiatek reminisced about her first sponsorship deals before claiming that, contrary to popular belief, she found it hard to focus on her game due to her off-court commitments.

"I remember, you know, signing my first sponsorship deals in, like, 2019 and 2020 and how much pressure it put on my shoulders," Iga Swiatek remarked. "Not everybody understood, honestly, because even people kind of close to me sometimes, my family, they thought that it's going to, I don't know, give me wings and, like, I'm gonna be just proud and play my best game, you know."

Swiatek did concede, though, that she was comfortable with the prospect of bagging big sponsors at this point of her career.

"But sometimes you feel like you need to perform better because they believe in you and you're representing them. I really needed to work on that hard, and I did that and I'm over it. I'm just really happy that I work with such great companies and they want to be together with me on the journey," she added.

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"People that I work with every day help with that a lot" - Iga Swiatek thanks IMG for helping her find balance between sponsors and tennis

Iga Swiatek poses with the 2022 US Open title

Iga Swiatek praised her collaborators at IMG, with whom she signed in September last year, for helping her grow not only off the court but also on the court.

"It's pretty amazing. We did a lot of progress in terms of, you know, what my management team is doing, and also how I put that together with my tennis and what I do on court, and also, yeah, people that I work with every day also help with that a lot," Swiatek said.

At the end of her press conference, she proceeded to express gratitude towards her sponsors for investing in her.

"So I'm just really happy that I have these companies behind my back and they are believing in me. I would say it doesn't have a bad influence on me. It did before when I was younger and I just didn't understand a lot of stuff, but I really worked hard to change that and now it's just great," she added.

Iga Swiatek is thriving in terms of her endorsements outside of tennis, as evidenced by her net worth of $20 million at the young age of 22. The list of companies that sponsor her includes Rolex, Asics, Visa, Red Bull, On, Technifibre and Lexus.