The wet weather at Melbourne Park wreaked havoc on Tuesday night and world number one Iga Swiatek was caught right in the middle of it — with no umbrella.
Speaking after she swept past Colombia’s Camila Osorio 6-2, 6-3 on Rod Laver Arena, Swiatek revealed she was left stranded in the rain, shielding herself under a tree.
“In Melbourne it’s usually sunny, except today and yesterday,” she said.
“So I need to change my plans. Yesterday I actually went for a walk at 7(pm) and then it started raining and I was just hiding under the tree, waiting for like 30 minutes.”
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Unfortunately it seems like no one came to Swiatek’s aid, something the 21-year-old hopes will change should she find herself stuck in the rain again.
“So if there’s anybody who’s going to see me tonight walking in the rain, please save me, give me umbrella or something,” Swiatek laughed.
Swiatek did not run into any issues on the court though, easily handling Osorio to breeze through to the third round.
The title favourite from Poland said after a tough first-round examination that she needed to find some extra “intensity”, and she found the spark against the 21-year-old world number 84.
The 2022 French and US Open champion, also 21, is looking to win the Australian Open for the first time and reached the last 32 after 1hr 24min of gritty resistance from Osorio.
“The match was much tougher than the score says,” said Swiatek, who made her Australian Open debut in 2019.
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“It was really intense physically and Camila didn’t give me many points for free, so I needed to really work for every and each of them.
“But I’m happy that I was consistent and I can play the next round,” added Swiatek, a year after recording her best result at Melbourne Park, losing to Danielle Collins in the semi-finals.
The three-time major winner — she also triumphed at Roland Garros in 2020 — will face either 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu of Canada or Spanish qualifier Cristina Bucsa in the third round.
