After winning her first Wimbledon title last year, Iga Swiatek was honored and celebrated at the annual Wimbledon Champions Dinner.<\/p>\n
Trophies were presented and portraits were unveiled at the swanky affair. And as is tradition, Swiatek shared a dance with the men’s champion, Jannik Sinner.<\/p>\n
Reflecting on her run to the title last year, the six-time Grand Slam champion provided some insight into what that experience was like.<\/p>\n
“I have no idea how to dance that way,” the World No. 3 said, admitting that she didn’t practice for the moment. “I didn’t go to any classes. I think you can see that, honestly.”<\/p>\n
Thankfully, her partner was the perfect counterpart.<\/p>\n
“Jannik was super chill,” the 25-time WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz champion said, “and a little bit tipsy, as well. It made the whole dance more smooth, and it’s gonna stay with me forever, for sure.”<\/p>\n
Check out the clip at the 7:00 mark below.<\/p>\n
Swiatek hopes to be able to enjoy another celebratory dance in a week and a half, and her title defense got off to a good start on Tuesday. Though it was anything but easy, Swiatek fought her way past Taylor Townsend 6-1, 2-6, 6-3 to advance to the second round.<\/p>\n
After the match, the emotion poured out of her.<\/p>\n
“I think the whole process of opening the court and playing as a defending champion is for sure really emotional,” Swiatek, still searching for her first title of 2026, told reporters. “Last year, probably the most amazing thing in my tennis career happened here. So I felt it also today.<\/p>\n
“But, you know, it was a mix of different emotions. Overall, I’m happy that I got the win, and I can have another chance to play on this court.”<\/p>\n
Swiatek will play Karolina Pliskova, a former finalist here, in the second round on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Swiatek has won all three of their career meetings, though they haven’t played since 2023. This will be their first match on grass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After winning her first Wimbledon title last year, Iga Swiatek was honored and celebrated at the annual Wimbledon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105,4277],"class_list":["post-520197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}