World No 1 Iga Swiatek a massive fan of Friends – EXCLUSIVE

World No 1 and top seed at the 2023 US Open, Poland’s Iga Swiatek, defeated her best friend Kaja Juvan from Slovenia 6-0, 6-1 in the third round on Friday.

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When Juvan won her only game of the match in the fourth game of the second set, she celebrated and urged on the crowd as if she had won the set.

Swiatek was asked if she was laughing inside when she saw Juvan’s reaction to her holding serve and getting onto the scoreboard for the first time, according to The South African website’s Dave Marshall.

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“No, I wasn’t laughing for sure. For sure it wasn’t an easy match for her. Emotionally as well it’s not easy to, like, play with such a score.

“But I really just wanted to focus on myself and I think also because I knew that it’s going to be a little bit harder for me to focus because she’s my best friend, I was actually more focused than usual.”

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Swiatek loves the TV show Friends, but does she have a favourite episode?

“Oh, my God, favourite episode. No, I don’t have the exact one. I don’t even have one favourite character, because it’s impossible to choose.

“When I first watched, my favourite character was Phoebe, then it was Monica. I’m not sure even now. Yeah, I love the show.”

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Swiatek revealed that she had a chat last week with Roger Federer about how to stay at number one in the world.

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“Well, honestly, I feel like he embraced everything. When he was on tour it seems like from his perspective it was, like, mainly fun.

“I also heard from other people that even, like, 30 minutes before a final he could chat and be relaxed.

“He’s that kind of guy. I think there is something we can learn from that. But for sure I’m a little bit different person.

“I need to really stay in the zone and bubble and be focused. So for sure it was nice to hear about the other perspective.

“But I’m really happy that I had the opportunity to talk to him a little bit more and just see how he approaches some stuff, you know. For sure he was pretty open to tell me that.”

Swiatek will take on Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko in the Round of 16 on Sunday.

Dave Marshall is covering the 2023 US Open live from New York exclusively for The South African website