The Japan Times - Swiatek 'playing better' despite end of French Open reign

The 24-year-old saw her winning streak in the event ended at 26 matches by Sabalenka in the semi-finals, suffering just the third defeat of her career at the clay-court Grand Slam.

Swiatek, who won a treble of the Madrid, Italian and French Opens on clay last year, has not reached a WTA final since and is set to drop to seventh in the world rankings.

But she looked more like her old self in Paris, right up until she collapsed in the deciding set against Sabalenka.

"I played some quality matches. Now it's probably not the best time to look at the wider perspective," said Swiatek.

"So probably it wasn't a bad tournament, but obviously not the result I wanted...

"I love playing here, so for sure I'm happy that I was fortunate enough to play so many great tournaments here.

"Even this one, I feel like I played better than weeks before. I'm just happy that I have this place to come back to every year and just try to push myself."

The five-time Grand Slam champion will next turn her attentions to the grass-court season and Wimbledon, where she has never got past the quarter-finals in five visits.

"Hopefully we're going to have some decent kind of little pre-season on grass, because it's always been pretty hard to have that, especially when I want to be a little bit at home (after Roland Garros)," Swiatek said.

"But I don't feel like I need to be home right now, so maybe I'll go somewhere in Europe, practise."

- Ranking points 'don't really matter' -

Swiatek will have fewer ranking points to defend in the remainder of the season, after losing in the third round of Wimbledon and the US Open quarter-finals last year before a one-month doping ban.

"I've lost many points right now, but I know that it doesn't really matter," she insisted.

"Any of us can win these tournaments. We kind of start every tournament from the beginning.

"So I'm just going to try to do my job and focus on just getting progress and learning new stuff on grass right now."

Swiatek alarmingly won just six points in the third set as Sabalenka raced through the decider in only 22 minutes.

She had disagreed with the chair umpire over a line call late in the second set, which she won, and was frustrated he refused to take a closer look at the mark.

"I just went to check the mark, and I saw the mark was out. I wanted him to come down, but he didn't," Swiatek said.

"So I don't think that was fair, especially when he came down, like, every time Aryna asked him to.

"I don't get it, but I don't really care."

T.Kobayashi--JT