Swiatek discloses that winning the China Open restores her self-belief

Tennis star Iga Swiatek once said that it's not a week if she's not crying. Sure enough, when Liudmila Samsonova's final errant shot landed at the China Open on Sunday, Swiatek's tears started to flow. Thankfully for Swiatek, they were happy, cathartic moments of elation.

They revealed just how much she doubted herself at the start of the week. Losing the No.1 ranking with her Round of 16 exit to Jelena Ostapenko at the US Open had weighed more heavily on Swiatek than she had led on.

"I would say the overall state that I kind of had for a couple of weeks," Swiatek said. "I feel like this tournament will give me confidence for the rest of my career that there's always a chance to overcome and work on what you do or what you feel. You can always get better. Sometimes it's pretty easy, but we tend to make it more complicated in our heads.

"I'm really happy that I just focused on hard work. It paid off -- maybe not instantly -- but I'm happy that after the US Open, I just got back to basics and just worked really hard tennis-wise. I'll just continue to do that."

"For sure, winning this trophy is something that will teach me kind of a lesson for the rest of my life."

Throughout the week in Beijing, Swiatek spoke about needing some time to regroup. She had, after all, been unexpectedly thrust into the World No.1 after Ashleigh Barty's sudden retirement last April. Given her 75-week reign of domination at the top of the game -- the third-longest debut streak at No.1 in WTA history -- it's easy to dismiss the degree of difficulty of what she ultimately accomplished.

During her reign, she picked up three Grand Slam titles, engineered a historic 37-match win streak, and single-handedly forced the rest of the tour to hit the practice courts. Collectively, they have elevated the modern game.