The interview was translated from Polish:
In your relationship, are you the one who motivates Iga to keep pushing the limits of endurance, for example, by training in a mask to improve fitness?
Iga is so intelligent and independent that we don’t even talk about it. I don’t suggest or hint at anything. She has trainers for that. I have stepped aside. Tomasz Wiktorowski is responsible for tennis issues, Maciej Ryszczuk for general preparation, and Daria Abramowicz for psychological matters. The team works very well, and they themselves make sure that the workload is at the right level.
You and Iga live sports practically all year round. Can you talk about anything other than tennis?
It’s amazing, but even when I come to Iga for tournaments and spend a lot of time with her, we don’t talk about tennis at all. We decided long ago that it’s impossible to live the sport all the time. Even during important tournaments, you have to escape with your thoughts from tennis, because constantly thinking about it would not do any good. The best tennis players are characterized by the fact that they devote one hundred percent of their time to the discipline - at training and during matches, possibly during post-match analysis. They devote the rest of their time to other issues.
Don’t you miss your role as head of your daughter’s team?
I’m glad I’m no longer one. I’ve never been a tennis player, so I’ll never feel it all as much as Iga and others do. Now she is the one who manages the team, makes the key decisions. She’s doing very well.
Was it easy to cut yourself off like that?
I didn’t cut myself off, after all, I’m still with her, I go to many tournaments. However, I try to have my own life and let Iga live and work as she wants. Before coming to the Olympics, I also talked to her about it. She agreed, she wanted me to be by her side during the tournament. I’m happy to be by her side as a parent. It really is more beneficial for everyone when there is a division of roles and competencies. The result is good results on the court. We are first and foremost a family, and family is not work. That’s what Iga has specialists for.
Many parents can’t find themselves in just such a role....
... And belong to the committee of crazy parents. Of course, it wasn’t easy for me at the beginning, but there was a moment when I processed a lot of things and understood what my role was. That, however, was quite early, even before Iga started her career in the WTA series. I’m glad I figured it out so quickly.
Not so long ago, Magda Linette’s dad admitted that he had trouble focusing on his other responsibilities. Do you also experience your daughter’s matches so strongly?
This is something that cannot be taught. When Iga enters the game well, there are indeed easier matches. I will admit that then I can actually relax. The match becomes a bit of such a self-play, and I watch the competition completely at ease. Still, there are some matches where you can see that Iga has difficulties from the beginning and struggles to play her tennis. This hurts me as a parent, but we have learned that losing is part of the sport. You can’t win all the time, especially in tennis.
Isn’t it that with each success it becomes harder and harder to come to terms with Iga’s losing matches?
Maybe, in fact, Iga has accustomed fans to the fact that most matches go quite easily for her. However, one should have a distance from this. It’s not that she has to win every match. I myself explain to her that she has already done so much that now she doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone and should focus on enjoying it.
Can you say that you know your daughter so well that just by her stepping out on the court you are able to tell what kind of match it will be for her?
It doesn’t work that way, because after all, every match has its phases. Tennis is interesting because practically until the end there is a possibility to make up even the biggest losses. However, I can see when the match is under her control, and when the bigger problems actually start.
Many experts say that during the Olympic Games we didn’t watch the real Iga, that she was too tense, nervous. What do you make of this?
The Olympic tournament is special because it is unique and is played only every four years. The extra stress was evident not only from Iga, but also from the other athletes. The favorites didn’t always win and it felt like a completely different burden.
It seemed that until now such issues as too much external pressure had not affected Iga. Why was it different this time?
The pressure to win the gold medal was very high, a lot of articles were written, everyone was already hanging this medal around Iga’s neck before the tournament, and this certainly did not help. Iga is only human. And it’s not like we push a button, the machine will go out on the court, win all the matches and leave Paris with the gold. I saw up close how much this tournament cost her, how stressed she was and how much she cared.
Iga herself said that she cuts herself off from the media for the duration of the tournaments, but you probably read them. How do you react to some of the experts’ opinions, such as the one about not having a plan B for the matches?
People write all sorts of things, but I decided from the beginning that I would not fight windmills. If I wanted to straighten out wrong assumptions, I wouldn’t do anything else, and I don’t have time for that. People judge differently, but it has the common feature that when it goes well, almost everyone praises, and when there is one stumble or loss, immediately the criticism begins. It’s hard to say what this is due to.
I understand that you as a father are hurt by the critical comments against your daughter, but I think you have to admit that this is not the norm, that it is incidental.
My point is not to elevate her on a pedestal, but to treat her like a human being who also needs support and is not an insensitive machine. I wish she could feel appreciated even in her weaker moments. It’s great that there are a lot of fans who give support and positive comments or messages also in more difficult moments.
Do you have any examples of specific allegations that have outraged you the most?
I’m not going to talk about specifics, because it’s pointless. However, the point is that many “experts” speak up, although they have absolutely no idea about the factors that affect performance and career or tennis development. They make theses that are often not supported by reality. This does not lead to anything, but creates chaos. However, I realize that I can’t fix the world by myself.
Do you wonder how long Iga’s dominance can continue? Are you afraid of a real crisis?
I’m not afraid of that at all, because it’s clear that there will come a moment when she trains or plays worse. Or simply the motivation will be less. This is part of life and sport. In her case, it’s all a matter of intrinsic motivation. If she drops for various reasons, it is clear that the ranking position will also drop. However, I don’t think it will be a drama. This is the natural course of things, after all, life is not a straight line going upwards only.
Do you think Iga is ready for something like this? Are you preparing for such a moment?
We don’t talk about it. The key is for Iga to continue wanting to do what she likes. So that after one tournament she still feels like going to the next one and competing. I assume that she is young enough and motivated enough to achieve more success that she treats her career as a great adventure. We are enjoying it all and doing everything we can to help her seize the moment.
In the past, there were times when Iga called you and had moments of doubt about the sense of what she was doing?
There were no such radical cases, but Iga pays attention to the WTA calendar, which forces players to constantly move and play with great frequency. After all, more and more tournaments are compulsory, and tournaments such as the Olympic Games have little room in the calendar, as this edition showed - they require an unfavorable change of surface twice. Such a system will lead to a decrease in the quality and level of play of the players. Already there are a lot of injuries, injuries or simple fatigue. All this causes the rank of the tournaments to drop. Fortunately, Iga is physically well-prepared and for the time being is able to manage the load properly, but it is a very demanding process.
Interviewed by Mateusz Puka, journalist at WP SportoweFakty
Translation
Grigor Dimitrov believes that there have been double standards in the handling of the Jannik Sinner ‘doping’ case: